HOW DO TEACHERS (CO-)CONSTRUCT WHAT THEY CONSIDER TO BE HIGH-QUALITY ASSESSMENT WHEN ASSESSING STUDENT LEARNING COLLABORATIVELY?

Prepublication

Abstract

Over the past two decades, a growing number of education policies have promoted a collective approach to the assessment of learning. This development forms part of a broader transformation in the governance of education systems, centred on assessment quality and the comparability of results. In Switzerland, this trend is reflected in the Évaluation en commun (“Common Assessment”) policy, which requires upper-secondary teachers (students aged 15 to 19) to collaborate in assessing learning, without explicitly defining expectations regarding quality. This article examines how, in this context, teaching teams construct what they consider to be a high-quality common assessment. This comprehensive study, conducted in three upper-secondary schools in French-speaking Switzerland, combines interviews with 30 teachers and observations of meetings held by eight teams to design common assessments. The analysis draws on Messick’s (1989) unified framework of validity and the multireferential nature of professional judgment (Mottier Lopez & Allal, 2008). The findings reveal a plural yet asymmetrical conception of quality, in which measurement-related dimensions - validity, reliability, and relevance - occupy a central position. In the absence of explicit standards, teachers collectively develop their own quality criteria from collective, institutional, and personal reference points that are often heterogeneous and sometimes in tension. This construction process relies on discussion, negotiation, and compromise to navigate tensions between the comparability of results, the constraints of collective work, and consideration of teaching contexts.