Discourses about grades and competency-based evaluation: Exploring communicative and situated meanings at an Italian high school.

Bibliographic Details
Title: Discourses about grades and competency-based evaluation: Exploring communicative and situated meanings at an Italian high school.
Authors: Costa, Sara, Norton, Laura Soledad, Pirchio, Sabine
Source: Social Psychology of Education; Oct2024, Vol. 27 Issue 5, p2177-2198, 22p
Subject Terms: TEACHER evaluation, THEMATIC analysis, HIGH school students, HIGH schools, FOCUS groups
Abstract: Grades are the universal tool for measuring students' performance at school. However, other competency-based evaluation methods have shown to have a stronger impact on the learning quality. We investigated how different methods are collectively represented and discursively constructed among students at an Italian high school class. Thematic analysis was applied to 4 focus groups of about one hour conducted with 18 students (F = 12, M = 6) attending the second year of a scientific high school, at the end of the second year of "At School Beyond the Grade" project. The main themes emerged were linked to the cultural and communicational meanings constructed around each method, showing how they are used for different purposes and yet stay strictly related. Comments were used in a self-reflective manner to improve learning competencies individually. Grades were used to communicate with others their position as a socially shared code. The emerged narratives show the students' expectations about the way teachers manage evaluation tools and their struggles on translating one into the other. Considerations on the shared ideal of both methods as complementary were discussed in terms of intercultural, identity and learning process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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Database: Complementary Index
More Details
ISSN:13812890
DOI:10.1007/s11218-024-09911-5
Published in:Social Psychology of Education
Language:English