Abstract

This thesis chronicles the conduct of a small-scale, mixed-method, practitioner-research investigation. It is also coupled with an account of my own personal journey through this PhD. The research reported here involves presenting accounts of the lived experiences of my GCSE English students, the GSCE English teachers who are my colleagues, and myself. It explores the reasons behind the troubling lack of impact of pedagogic interventions predicated upon research in the field of formative assessment in the context of GCSE resit English as enacted in the FE college based in the North-East of England where I work. The research initially began with the exploration of the use of dialogue and oracy as pedagogic devices which I developed as part of a what I hoped would be an innovative formative assessment strategy, through which I aimed to mitigate students’ negative perceptions of the study of the subject of GCSE English. It is of course understandable that for most of my post-16 resit GCSE students, having to re-take a subject following an unsuccessful experience of publicly “failing” a GCSE English examination, often results in a loss of their confidence in themselves as learners. This loss of confidence is frequently compounded by a disengagement and lack of interest in learning GCSE English - a subject in which they have all too obviously been found wanting or, worse still, have been publicly labelled following their GSCE examinations as simply being not good enough.
Data from this study indicate that the problem that gave impetus to this thesis is grounded in issues surrounding the implementation, or perhaps more accurately, misinterpretation of the theory and practice of formative assessment research in educational contexts. It is reasonably plausible therefore, to infer that the problem surrounding the troubling lack of impact of formative assessment strategies encountered in my college may not be an isolated case and could be prevalent in other FE colleges across England. This thesis investigates why written formative assessment is not living up to the promises that the findings of highly-respected, peer-reviewed educational research suggest that it should. It also investigates why the formative assessment feedback, painstakingly provided to students by their teachers, is not successfully closing the gap between students’ current and potential levels of achievement.
A pressing issue here is that too many young people are still not passing their GCSE English resit exams despite the considerable efforts of their teachers in FE colleges to provide them with robust and rigorous written formative assessment feedback. As the research has developed and progressed, and as I incrementally engaged more critically and deeply with key literature in this field of study, so too has my understanding of the complexity of the problem. As a result of my research journey, the focus of the thesis has now shifted towards an exploration of the ‘grip’ that preoccupations with technique – first described by Aristotle
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(384-322 BC) as techné, cited in Dunne (1993) have tightened their hold over the practices of vocational teachers in FE colleges in England.
This thesis also critically discusses how, and why, the unintentional displacement of the first principle of formative assessment, active learning, (Black and Wiliam, 2009) has become lost in preoccupations with assessment techniques. In the course of this research, I have also become more aware of the dangers of uncritically accepting a set of formative assessment techniques (techné) and making the assumption that the simple application of a technique in practice will provide a ‘quick-fix’ to complex and enduring educational problems.
A further focus of this study is upon the neglect in FE of multi-modal assessment, capable of taking into account all 3 domains of learning, cognitive, affective and psychomotor which take the lived experience of learners in FE seriously. This thesis also brings to light how the same neglect of multi-modal assessment, may prove to be pivotal in bringing about a more balanced and holistic approach to formative assessment in vocational education contexts. It also highlights the adverse consequences of inauthentic approaches to assessment for FE learners. In addition, this thesis explores the potential of alternative pedagogic approaches in AfL assessment strategies that can be deployed to bring about active learning including, oracy and storytelling. Finally, a deeper understanding of the relationship between authentic assessment techniques, meaningful pedagogy and the purposes of education are also discussed. The findings and subsequent recommendations that unfold in this thesis, are the story it tells.