Exploring tensions in developing assessment for learning

This paper is based on a study of classroom practice of primary school teachers who were engaged in a programme of professional development to implement formative assessment in their classrooms. The programme sought to develop the skills and expertise of teachers to enable formative assessment to be used to support and improve the learning of students. This study examined changes in practice in these teachers’ classrooms, their students’ learning experiences, pedagogical decision‐making, and the challenges experienced by teachers and students in developing assessment for learning. Activity theory was used as an analytical tool and enabled the identification of important contradictions in the changing system that produced tensions and difficulties but also provided driving forces for change. The development of formative assessment practices was of necessity accompanied by a culture change in the complex classroom systems. For teachers change was characterised as a process of expansive learning that was motivated by a contradiction between the teachers’ beliefs about learning and the existing culture in the classroom. The change in classroom practice was enabled by the formative assessment philosophy and a range of mediating artefacts.