La evaluación del aprendizaje del alumnado en la ESO. Estudio de caso

Abstract

The evaluation is often used more to qualify and categorize the students, according to a social function, rather than with a pedagogical purpose to help improve student learning and ensure the participation and progress of all. For this reason, it moves away from an inclusive approach to education and gives accounts of its anchorage in a traditional system of teaching and learning. The main aim of this thesis is to investigate the assessment approach used by a group of secondary education teachers in Spain, in order to identify the barriers that are preventing the change from traditional techniques assessment to an approach respects the principles of inclusive education. The ultimate objective of the research is to provoke internal debate about school culture, practices and educational policy to start an innovation process in order to towards more inclusive educational approaches. A qualitative methodology was used in this research, the case study. Six teachers participated and small group of students, that whit their comments have helped to deepen study object: assessment of learning in compulsory secondary education in Spain. The procedures used to collect the data were partly structured interviews, group discussions and documentary analysis. The analysis and categorization of information revealed that the current assessment approach is summative, based on a social purpose (certification). Examinations are the basic procedure for making decisions about the progress of students, which also affects how the school system deals with diversity, an approach that is far removed from an inclusive perspective. The main barriers that are preventing this process of innovation which promotes study programmes and organizational approaches that guarantee the presence, participation and progress of all students, have been grouped into three main categories –center, teachers and external factors, demonstrate the need to reconsider the assessment process from a global perspective, taking into account the school culture in the first place. The results show how reflection spaces shared by teachers are a proper way to rethinking assessment practices, in this case, but also they make unstable the different aspects that define teaching process and the collective and individual resistance of teachers to overcome approaches which are not inclusive at all.