Book Description

Teachers' conceptions of assessment are powerful in influencing the quality of their teaching practices. In the New Zealand context, there have been studies into both preservice and in-service teachers' conceptions of assessment. However, less research has investigated how beginning teachers' conceptions of assessment change from their completion of initial teacher education programmes until they are fully registered. Moreover, research on beginning language teachers' conceptions of assessment has been rarely concerned with those who come from different cultural backgrounds. To address this gap, this thesis investigated how beginning Chinese-heritage language teachers' assessment conceptions and practices as they began to teach the Chinese language in New Zealand secondary schools. The study consisted of two phases: Phase 1 was a focus group interview with seven preservice Chinese-heritage language teachers who were at the completion of a 1-year initial teacher education programme. The purpose of the interview was to gain understandings of these beginning teachers' conceptions of assessment before they began teaching in secondary schools. Phase 2 was a longitudinal case study investigating three beginning Chinese-heritage language teachers' conceptions and practices of assessment over 2 years as they worked towards fully registered teacher status. In this phase, data were collected through interviews, classroom observations, reflective conversations and documents. A reflexive thematic analysis approach was employed to analyse the data regarding conceptions while a conceptual framework constructed from existing literature guided analysis of the practice data. The findings demonstrated that these beginning Chinese-heritage language teachers shifted their negative attitudes and deepened understandings about assessment during their 1-year initial teacher education programme. These changes, however, were found to be both helpful and fragile. As the three beginning teachers began to teach in their specific secondary school context, factors of personal confusion about assessment, limited support from school communities (microlevel) and Chinese-heritage cultural influences (macrolevel) constrained beginning Chinese-heritage language teachers from learning about assessment continuously. The findings also highlighted the interactions between the beginning Chinese-heritage language teachers' prior assessment beliefs and their current assessment experiences in the New Zealand context, showing their active attempts to adjust their conceptions and practices to meet the needs of students and schools. All these findings were oriented to continuous support from within and across schools. This study contributes a new conceptual framework for understanding assessment practice and uses it to describe how beginning Chinese-heritage teachers' assessment conceptions and practices are challenged and developed. It makes recommendations to initial teacher education programmes, secondary school leaders and policymakers, and professional development programmes.