Sociocultural approach to assessments
These notes are part of a series for the book. The authors of this article did a study of preschool teachers. They wanted to find out how the teachers could do assessments within a sociocultural approach.
Outline
- Introduction
- Socio-cultural perspectives on learning
- The study
- The findings — case study
- Conclusion
Notes
The authors of this article did a study of preschool teachers. They wanted to find out how the teachers could do assessments within a sociocultural approach.
Background
First they note some background:
- Assessments could be influenced by the work of Vygotsky and his theory of the zone of proximal development (ZPD), which assesses potential and what can be done when supported by others. However, this is rarely done in Western cultures.
- The way we assess children sometimes looks fragmented because our techniques reflect how we see children, in terms of biological stages of development within different categories (such as social, intellectual, and motor development).
Using observational data for assessment
One approach that can be done for assessment within a sociocultural approach is to document a child’s interactions (as observational data). At the same time, the assessment should be about the learning journey (not end result) of the group (not the individual). ‘[A]ssessment practices that follow a socio-cultural perspective are framed to map the transformation of understanding and not some end point’ (Fleer and Richardson, 2008, p. 141). ‘What is key is transformation in the process of participation in community activities, not acquisition of competences defined independently of the socio-cultural activities in which people participate’ (Rogoff, 1998, cited in Fleer and Richardson, 2008, p. 141).
The study
The authors did their study with 6 staff members. The staff were to document the children’s interactions based on a framework that aligned with Rogoff’s three planes of focus (which are institutional, interpersonal, and personal). They were to categorize interactions as either modelled, shared, or independent. The teachers had tremendous difficulty doing so. They were not sure what types of activities they should document and which categories to place them in, and they also noted that deciding what to record reflected their values.
The authors then asked them to move to a diary, but only one of the six staff members did so. The rest were too busy to make any entries.
The authors concluded that over the 12 months, the staff moved from being peripheral participants in sociocultural assessment toward assuming more responsibility in documenting their observations.