Exploring the Assessment Experiences of Eight Teenage Maltese Boys

Abstract

Teaching, learning, and assessment are not silos. Instead, they are the pillars that should be connected by meaningful assessment practices for effective educational gains. Assessment can be meaningful to its users—educators and students—only if they can make sense of what, and why, they are employing certain strategies and techniques. In the intent to contribute to this lacuna, eight 12-year-old male voices attending the same non-state school were captured. A narrative methodological approach has been adopted to provide an enriched understanding of the learners' life experiences of their educational assessment. Virtual interviews were the source of data collection. Findings show different degrees of understanding—narrow, moderate, and broad—and a relationship with the preferred modalities of assessment. Despite the lack of uniformity in the formative assessment (FA) practices adopted by their educators, all the boys see benefits in the use of FA strategies, yet assessment is regarded as a teacher thing rather than a shared partnership between them.