Written formative assessment. A study of how students experience and understand written formative assessment of their written texts in ‘English as a foreign language’.

Written assessment of written text has a strong tradition in schools. It is time consuming for the teachers, and important for students in order to develop their skills. Assessment has been given increased attention in the last decades, but relatively little research has been carried out at lower secondary level, or in Norway in particular. This study takes a closer look at how 23 students at lower secondary schools experience their teachers' written assessments of a written mock exam in English as a foreign language. The students attend five different schools and qualitative interviews have been carried out with each of them. The focus has been on finding out what aspects of the assessments that the students struggle to understand, in addition to detecting possible pitfalls for teachers to avoid in their future assessments. The main findings are that students have problems understanding metalingustic words and phrases, and that this often leads to a total lack of understanding of the various comments of the assessments. In addition, students often need a more detailed explanation on the different issues that teachers point out in the assessments. Also, the meanings of some of the assumedly established expression used in assessments are not necessarily understood by the students. It is advisable that teachers reconsider the use of much used expression, or at least ensure themselves that their students understand them. While one of the aims of formative assessment is that students are going to be able to make use of it to improve their future work, the current thesis have found indications that teachers give advice and suggestions that are outside the students' 'zone of proximal development' (ZPD). The findings also raise awareness to the issues of 'cognitive overload' and power relations between teachers and students: Students should get feedback to a limited and feasible amount of topics to prevent discouragement. Teachers should also be aware that it might not be as easy for a student to discuss the assessment with the teacher, and that the teachers' roles as the one who judges their performance might affect the relationship. Hopefully, the findings of this thesis will encourage other teachers to take a second look at the written assessments they hand their students, seeking to improve them in order to enhance the student's understanding and learning