Exploring Teacher Assessment Literacy and Teacher Belief across Assessment Cultures. A cross-cultural study in China and Italy

Teachers are expected to be assessment-literate in response to the competency demands posed by the rapidly evolving assessment landscape, and the challenges arising from the accountability mandates. Although previous findings have shown that accountability pressure profoundly impacts teachers’ beliefs and teaching practices, relatively few studies linked teachers’ assessment literacy in practice to the cognitive and affective aspects of teachers’ beliefs. Research generally emphasized the importance of assessment literacy within the increased accountability climate. However, they relatively overlooked the impacts of such backgrounds on shaping characteristics of teachers’ assessment literacy and their beliefs across socio-cultural contexts. Considering the contextual nature of teacher assessment literacy, it is crucial to conduct a cross-cultural comparison of how different cultures of assessment in China and Italy influence teachers’ assessment literacy and their beliefs in responding to the accountability pressure. This study explores the boundaries set by assessment macro- and micro-cultures across China and Italy. Then, it examines the characteristics of how Chinese and Italian teachers navigate and negotiate assessment macro- and micro-cultures to implement assessment and how they respond to accountability pressure in cognitive and affective aspects of their beliefs. Quantitative data was collected from 478 Chinese and 85 Italian in-service teachers in upper secondary schools. The findings revealed that “hard” boundaries in China mainly shaped eager assessors, while “soft” boundaries in Italy mainly formed moderately teacher-centric assessors. Regardless of different contexts, teachers’ years of experience and self-efficacy positively predicted assessment literacy. Also, there was a similar overall response trend of teachers’ beliefs for Chinese and Italian teachers whose self-perceived cognitive aspects of beliefs were higher than affective aspects. The “soft” boundaries tend to be more conducive to cultivating a higher sense of teacher belief. The results suggested that teachers’ assessment literacy interacts with their beliefs each other.