L’évaluation formative en écriture

Through the results of a generalizability study, Heritage, Kim, Vendlinski & Herman (2009) show that teachers are better at determining the quality of student work than they are at deciding the next steps in instruction to support learning. The present research starts from this evidence and seeks to better understand the obstacles that limit teachers’ formative assessment decisions in writing. A questionnaire was used to help teachers determine the strengths and areas of need of their students’ work and to plan the next instructional steps to support learning. An individual retrospective interview was also used to better understand teachers’ thinking behind the answers they provided on the questionnaire. Content analysis was used to analyze questionnaire answers and interview transcriptions. Research results show that the formative assessment process is complex and multidimensional and raise fundamental questions regarding teachers’ professional knowledge and skills in this domain.