We explore the effect of students' perceived task difficulty on the mathematics self-efficacy -- performance relationship. Specifically, we expand on previous reciprocal effects studies through including students' self-efficacy for different levels of task difficulty in an empirical investigation. We examined students' self-efficacy for easy,…

This study aimed to investigate the predictability of writing development and if scores on a writing test in the first weeks of first grade accurately predict students' placements into different proficiency groups. Participants were 832 first grade students in Norway. Writing proficiency was measured twice, at the start and at the end of first…

Enabling comparable scores across grades is of interest for policymakers to evaluate educational systems, for researchers to investigate substantive questions, and for teachers to infer student growth. This study implemented a vertical scaling design to numeracy tests given in grades 5 and 8 as part of the Norwegian national testing system. Our…

Signature pedagogies are widely used in professional education to prepare students for the complex and unpredictable nature of professional work. We argue that assessment moments involving professional artefacts contribute to the evaluation and formation of professional knowledge, skills and moral understandings -- and thus to the signature of the…

This article addresses written feedback to students' drafts and provides insight into teachers' formative assessment practices. Data are taken from a large cross-disciplinary project on writing and assessment in Norway and comprises a sample of 7th graders' writing processes from 11 schools. Teachers' comments are categorised according to…

This article reports consequences for student writing quality based on a long-term professional learning project. Project teachers, representing all school subjects in grades 3-7, were presented with a writing construct, 'Wheel of Writing', and norms of expectation for writing proficiency. Participating teachers used the writing construct and…

In this article, we examine how assessment is enacted and negotiated in a school project that involves multimodal composition. The case is a project on advertisement in which lower secondary students collaboratively composed multimodal commercials about various products and topics. The theoretical framework is based on sociocultural perspectives…

Gender differences in reading seem to increase throughout schooling and then decrease or even disappear with age, but the reasons for this are unclear. In this study, we explore whether differences in the way "reading literacy" is operationalised can add to our understanding of varying gender differences in international large-scale…

This article promulgates a conceptual framework for researching various roles of educational assessment emphasised in governments' assessment policies as a basis for comparing policy-making related to national testing in primary and lower secondary education in Norway and Sweden from 2000-2017. The study analyses policy documents and expert…

In this study, we aim to understand the forces driving assessment for learning (AfL) in primary school teaching. By applying a case study design, including the two cases of Norway and Portugal and using mathematics teaching as an example, available policy documents and research reports are analysed to identify the differences and similarities that…

This study investigates how different stakeholders in Norway experienced a government-initiated, large-scale policy implementation programme on "Assessment for Learning" ("AfL"). Data were collected through 58 interviews with stakeholders in charge of the policy; Ministers of Education and members of the Directorate of…

Novice members of a Norwegian national rater panel tasked with assessing Year 8 pupils' written texts were studied during three successive preparation sessions (2011-2012). The purpose was to investigate how the raters successfully make use of different decision-making strategies in an assessment situation where pre-set criteria and standards give…

Feedback to students has been identified as a key strategy in learning and teaching, but we know less about how feedback is understood by students. The purpose of this study is to gain more insight into lower secondary students' perceptions of when and how they find classroom feedback useful. This article draws on data generated through individual…

Handling appeals against grades is time consuming and requires allocation of resources away from the pursuit of activities such as instruction, research, and supervision of postgraduate students. This study examines grievance policies, frequencies, and outcomes of appeals at the University of California (UCB) and the University of Oslo (UIO). We…

The validity of the Norwegian university grading standard has been called into serious question. The implicit standards used for assessing exams and the reliability of that understanding among examiners and psychology students were investigated in three studies. Studies 1 and 2 investigated the implicit standards that examiners used when assessing…