Turkish Science Teacher Candidates Understandings of Equitable Assessment and Their Plans about It

Year 2018, Volume: 4 Issue: 2, 193 - 205, 01.07.2018

Kemal Izci

https://doi.org/10.21891/jeseh.436744

Cited By: 1

Abstract

This study aims to investigate how Turkish science teacher candidates
understand equitable assessment and in what ways they plan to provide equitable
assessment practices. 156 science teacher candidates from a teacher education
program in a large university in Eastern part of Turkey participated in the
current study. A questionnaire and semi-structured interviews served as data
sources. All collected data were qualitatively analyzed to illustrate science
teacher candidates’ understandings of equitable assessment and their plans to
achieve equitable assessment in their lessons. Results of the study showed that
science teacher candidates mostly equated equitable assessment with fairness
including fairness in grading. But most of the teacher candidates did not consider
that providing equal opportunities for students to display their levels of
understanding about the related concepts was not an important characteristic of
equitable assessment. The results also showed that participants focused on
differences in learning styles and language as reasons why to provide equitable
assessment and accordingly stated some ways to achieve equality in assessment
processes for these groups. While preparing teachers, teacher education
programs need to emphasize more understanding of diversity and provide the
knowledge and attitudes necessary for effective teaching.

Keywords

Equitable assessment, Science teaching, Science teacher education, Diversity of learners

References

• Izci, K. (2018). Turkish science teacher candidates understandings of equitable assessment and their plans about it. Journal of Education in Science, Environment and Health (JESEH), 4(2), 193-205.