The programme for professional development of chemistry teachers’ assessment competency

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to investigate the effects of the programme for professional development of chemistry teachers on their competencies for conducting formative and summative assessment in chemistry teaching. The programme participants were 30 chemistry teachers from primary and secondary schools. Data were collected using a questionnaire at the beginning and at the end of the programme implementation. The programme included four workshops with the same structure: the introduction, group work and the discussion of the results obtained through group work. The workshops focused on: i) the assessment as a support for chemistry learning; ii) the harmonization of teaching and learning activities, formative and summative assessment, feedback from formative assessment and the criteria used to evaluate students in summative assessment; iii) the evaluation of the validity of tasks used for formative and summative assessment according to the curricula aims and the educational standards; iv) designing tasks for monitoring students’ progress towards certain educational standards. Teachers’ responses show the impact of the programme for the development of their competencies for assessment, particularly regarding formative and summative assessment and designing various kinds of assessment in accordance with the achievement standards.