NEGOTIATING MEANING AND GRADES IN A SOCIOCULTURAL INVESTIGATION OF FORMATIVE CLASSROOM ASSESSMENT PRACTICES IN AN INDONESIAN ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21274/ls.2026.18.1.35-66Keywords:
formative assessment, sociocultural theory, classroom discourse, assessment negotiation, Indonesian EFL, speaking assessment, learner identityAbstract
Research on formative assessments in the classroom has primarily been based on lecturer’s assessment literacies in the form of questionnaires, and have ignored the elaborative, real time, assessment meaning negotiations that occur between lecturer and students. This qualitative case study examined the negotiations of the formative assessment criteria and feedback in the English as a Foreign Language speaking classroom in Indonesia. This study contributes to the social assessment dialogic process research. This study was part of a 16-week longitudinal qualitative research study conducted in the Universitas Hindu Negeri I Gusti Bagus Sugriwa Denpasar, and involved one lecturer and 25 students, while 7 focal students were chosen to participate in interviews. Data were obtained through Classroom Observational Research, video recorded interactions, Semi-Structured interviews, Stimulated Recall exercises, Reflective Journals, and Document analysis. Thematic analysis yielded four patterns of criteria negotiations; the (1) explicit/informal feedback rubric criterion conflict; (2) student-initiated clarification through questioning and requesting feedback exemplar; (3) lecturer-initiated clarifications as a response to feedback observed/perceived difficulties; and (4) the rare co-determination of rubric criteria through interactions, especially during collaborative rubric construction for the panel discussion tasks. The diverse assessment interactions also shaped the lecturer-student interactions relationships and changed students’ fear based learning identities to positive confident learning identities. The study concludes that formative assessment is essentially interpretive and relational, and that it necessitates pedagogical intentionality to guarantee that all learners have equitable engagement.
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