Experiencing Assessment in the Classroom: A Study in a Lower Secondary School in the Province of Varese (Italy)

Abstract

There is a close link between school well-being and the assessment experience in the classroom. Students pay particular attention to what their teachers say about assessment, but they also have the opportunity to verify in the field, directly, how the declared principles are (or not) translated into actions. If assessment can represent a powerful resource for promoting quality educational experiences and generating significant learning, it becomes decisive to empirically explore the evaluation situations experienced by students in their daily school lives. The research suits this purpose and it fits into the Student Voice perspective by recognizing students as authoritative interlocutors with a “unique” point of view. Due to its origin, the transferability of the study can be found in the method and the process rather than in the results which have local validity. At the practical level, the students’ assessment experience shows more lights than shadows where the outcome is integrated with the process. However, this is not a sugar-coated vision as there are also references to failures and failures. Taken as a whole, the data suggest future working paths at a local level and provide interesting ideas for enriching the scientific debate by problematizing some central issues.