Notes on:
Steinberg, C. (2008) 'Assessment as an
"emotional practice"'. English
Teaching: Practice and Critique 7 (3):
42-64.
Dave Harris
Everyone seems to experience 'strong emotions of
anxiety, irritation and even despair during times
of assessment'(42), but these expressions state
private. In the public sphere emotions are
rarely mentioned, and assessment becomes 'an
emotionless, objective reality'. Assessment
is becoming increasingly important. In South
Africa it is central to the struggle for social
justice, because it is an important
gatekeeper. It is also used to lever
educational reform, since formal examinations
imply knowledge which will bring about different
pedagogy and more 'effective' teaching. It
is also a way of holding schools accountable for
educational quality, and this itself is linked to
economic growth. International standardized
tests enable the ranking of different countries.
Nussbaum suggest that any important component of
social interaction will 'evoke strong emotions'
(43), and these are defined as appraisals or value
judgements about how well external and
uncontrolled items are proceeding [classic but
limited notion of affect]. Emotions are
instant, sometimes subconscious appraisals of
objects including events and ideas which are
important to our wellbeing. Intense emotions
mean the situation is highly important, whereas
quality, such as feelings of pleasure, helpless
judge whether what is happened is beneficial
[classic modernized Spinoza].
However, there are negative emotions in private,
although there is public support for
assessment. Teachers and others dislike
being assessed and expressed negative emotions
when they are. Teachers complain about
excessive paperwork, and talk about feelings of
failure if they are or their students fail.
Yet they see assessment as necessary, and claim
claim that it motivates people. Emotions
necessarily affect teacher planning and practice,
but seemed to be contradictory.
Hargreaves has already argued that teaching is an
emotional practice which shapes the feelings of
teachers and students, and their stances towards
school structures, pedagogy, curriculum, parents
and educational change. Emotions affect
their professional identity and their educational
ideals. Positive emotions in particular seem
to be important for learning, and teachers are
often urged not to be afraid of feelings, since
they can be connected to cognitive
understanding. Students can also be
encouraged to become tough minded if there is a
space for their feelings [a longitudinal research
study is cited, 44], where warm and emotional
relationships predicted 'reading and maths skill
growth'. The quality of teaching also
depends on a sense of purpose and motivation, as
well as confidence. Teacher education should
be focused on the relations between emotional
presence and work. Commitment and resilience
also 'requires a predominantly positive emotional
state' (45). Assessment seems to provide
particularly difficult moments with distressing
emotions.
MacIntyre has referred to external and internal
'"goods of practice"', with the former relating to
social and financial rewards, and the latter to
skill and knowledge [which presumably produces
pleasure]. Assessment straddles these two
areas, though, providing visible external goods,
but less obvious internal ones. Teachers can
take pleasure in observing student progress,
however, although these depend on being able to
notice progress. External goods are often
comparative in a different way, and this
comparison often disadvantages students from less
advantaged backgrounds: public assessment can show
a lack of achievement, and this can produce
disappointment and frustration for teachers as
well.
If accountability is included, extra tensions are
added: the inner vulnerability of teaching becomes
apparent. Such a vulnerability is 'intrinsic
to being a teacher' (46), because there are
competing demands, yet teachers 'feel responsible
for their students' successes and failures'.
Some failure is 'inevitable', however.
Teachers are left with having to make complex
moral decisions which have visible public
consequences: [imposter syndrome] is chronic,
especially if teachers internalized the
expectation that they are perfect. The
result is what Hargreaves calls '"powerful guilt
traps"', and guilt can lead to 'cynicism,
exhaustion and burnout.
There is a large literature on assessment,
including using it to promote student
learning. The emotions involved are
sometimes hinted at. There is also a huge
literature on teacher emotions [including Zembylas], and it is
increasing: Sutton and Wheatly (2003) have a
review. Teachers discuss positive emotions
like love, caring or affection, satisfaction and
pleasure when children make progress, pride and
excitement if they do, and 'their desire to feel
supported'. Negative emotions include anger
and frustration related to student misbehaviour or
uncooperative colleagues and parents, anxiety
about whether they are effective, helplessness and
guilt, and sadness 'about the home lives of some
of their students'(47). Zembylas in
particular has suggested that the impact of
testing might be researched, but there is still
'practically nothing on the emotions of the
assessors'. Those that exist looked at
things like internal and external goods, focusing
on emotions during an assessment event, or during
judgement of students. No one has researched
the emotions connected with marking, perhaps
because they are so uncomfortable. There are
studies of emotional responses to standardized
assessments and accountability, with intense
emotions related to work that assesses teachers
directly as in performance appraisal. It is
a mosaic.
The studies of teacher emotions during assessment
(48) showed that teachers were having to decide
whether to emphasize 'retributive' or
'utilitarian' goals in their response to
assessment results, to consider retaliation for a
past wrong, or altering future behaviour
respectively: largely it was the latter.
Much depended on the characteristics attributed to
students, how responsible they were for their own
failure, and how permanent the problem was seen as
being. Anger resulted if students were seen as
responsible, and retribution ensued, while
unfortunate circumstances lead to sympathy and
utilitarian responses. Permanent sources of
failure were treated sympathetically, a temporary
failure was greeted with emotions which 'wavered
between irritability and sympathy', and no
sympathy was directed toward students perceived as
lazy. A similar study of PE teachers showed
that they valued progress and effort and preferred
assessment criteria that stressed them: lack of
effort led to a lack of sympathy.
Feeling anger in response is particularly strange,
and seems to imply that teachers feel they have
been treated with contempt [I feel that way with
students who attempt to plagiarize naively - they
think I don't know my own stuff!]. Perhaps
this is because student results are seen to be a
reflection on teacher competence. Perhaps
some anger is really directed at themselves but
projected outwards: retribution can stem from
powerlessness.
The complexities prompted Steinberg's own
reflections, noting the flows of emotion during
assessment, including some where she was an
External. She felt pain and anger at reading
a presentation, confused and irritated at having
to make so much effort to make sense of it,
anxious at having to tell the student. The
result was 'writing curt comments all over the
margins'(49). After calming down, this
turned into concern, about the impact on the
student, and whether she had the right as an
outsider to fail the piece. Wouldn't the
internal supervisor be insulted? Was her
judgment fully accurate anyway? Confusion resulted
because judgment had turned into judgement of her
own abilities as an assessor. The supervisor
calmed her down and rationalized a negative
judgement as only a part of the process. She
notes that relationships are involved even if
students are not actually present. [A note
explains that less emotional turmoil arises from
multiple choice or one-word answer formats]
Another study of emotional responses (Stough and
Emmer 1998) turned on teachers providing
students with feedback after a test. Some
teachers 'dreaded' the process (50) and were
afraid students would be 'volatile and attacking',
including those who had got good marks but wanted
better ones. Emotional concerns dominated
their comments. The goals were both
educational and 'emotion based - to avoid
confrontations with students'. They
structured feedback to limit negative emotions,
while remaining consistent with their
beliefs. They controlled the space for
negative emotions: they spent most of the time
explaining questions and answers, or they 'asked
students to discuss answers with each other in
small groups'. They asked particularly
aggrieved students to speak to them
privately. They masked their own
'nervousness, frustration, irritation or anxiety'
with a 'calm, deliberative persona'. This
managed the event, but also 'caused good
opportunities for explanations and clarifying
misunderstandings to be missed'. Students
did not enjoy the feedback sessions, and often
appeared 'confused, argumentative or too upset to
speak': few claimed to have learned anything.
This is a clear example about how feedback can
produce strong and mainly negative emotions based
on fear or anger. These emotions can be
transferred in the form of blame. Teacher
emotions are interconnected with beliefs and
goals, which is why they do feedback like this,
but they also want to avoid negative emotions and
anxiety. The problem seems worse if teachers
believe that the exam was appropriate. These
emotions clearly had an effect on actions.
For example anxiety lead to careful preparation
and consideration of strategies, including
anticipating student responses, but other
strategies sometimes emerged to prevent
escalation, usually by cutting down on the 'space
for dialogue and exploration of misunderstood
content' (51).
We can use Zembylas on the notion of emotional
rules to explore further. If emotional
rules expect control of negative emotions in
favour of empathy, calmness and kindness, this
will require emotional labour so that teachers can
embody and express appropriate emotions.
Self alienation and stress can be the result as
well as increased satisfaction and self
esteem. We can also divide the functional
and dysfunctional uses of emotions. Emotions
can alert us to problems, but can be dysfunctional
if they lead to blaming one's self or others [or
the system, says Winograd, the little
conservative]. Teachers can be stuck by
dysfunctional emotions, or propelled into action
by functional ones, so that 'a liberating form of
emotional labour can potentially be a driving
force for professional transformation'[tautology
of course] (52). We can see functional and
dysfunctional uses of emotion in the examples
above, but note the effect of conventional
emotional rules which still prevented people from
openly acknowledging and overcoming dysfunctional
emotions: they coped but were not liberated.
Zembylas points out that traditional emotional
rules often discourage new pedagogies, so reform
must take account of them. In South Africa,
there is encouragement to use formative assessment
in addition to summative, but this can produce
tensions, leading teachers to 'find it depressing
and frustrating'. This could be because
there are different emotional rules
involved. Summative assessment assumes
students are responsible for their own results and
failures: it follows that teachers can identify
with success but not feel responsible for failure,
so they should be no negative emotions and a
comforting 'emotional distance between assessors
and assessed'. Summative assessment also
assumes that it follows pleasurable teaching,
again offering a suitable separation.
Feedback by teachers can be seen as 'doing
students a favour'. However, formative
assessment leaves teachers still being responsible
for student progress, having to engage with
student misunderstandings, involving teachers more
in failure, even if this is seen as an opportunity
for learning. Teachers are both teachers and
providers of unpleasant feedback, mixing
'pleasurable and difficult emotions' (53).
Here, the emotions need to be acknowledged.
This is more demanding, and shifting towards more
formative involves a change in both beliefs and
emotional rules, which will require emotional
labour, unacknowledged by traditional emotional
roles: reformers and teacher educators should
acknowledge the need for doing this emotional
labour.
Similar points applied to the increase of
assessment used as accountability measures.
Negative and positive emotions are involved.
Classroom assessment is often seen as very
different from external standardized assessment,
with the former favouring deep learning, and the
latter encouraging skills inappropriate for
learning in the knowledge society [I am
paraphrasing Hargreaves]. External
standardized assessment is more 'high stakes'and
thus likely to produce intense emotions, some in
the background. The study is cited on
teacher responses referring to the publication of
test scores as leading to shame, embarrassment,
guilt and anger, reservations about the validity
of the test and the need to raise scores, anxiety
about the emotional impact of these tests on young
children. There was a conflict with
teachers' educational ideals and beliefs, and fear
of public failure, leading to a perceived threat
to integrity.
One result was to leave teachers 'scrambling for
changes to their practice that would avoid such
negative emotions in future' (54). These
changes were not positive. Time available
for learning was reduced, so was curriculum
coverage and teaching strategies—teaching to the
test. Another study also found negative
emotional responses, a feeling that considerable
burdens had been added to, that changes produced
uncertainty, and there was strong anxiety about
public test scores. Again, the response was
to reduce participation in professional
development, spend less instructional time, and
emphasise specific topics.
Another American study shows broad agreement that
teachers have strong reservations about tests and
concerns about negative effects, but in this case,
the context was important, and district leadership
affected attitudes. So did the 'socio
economic status of the student community in the
district' (55). Some districts employed a
strategy which conformed to teacher notions of
good education, while others led to teacher
resentment. Teachers in low socioeconomic
status areas were particularly worried that their
efforts would not be effective since they had to
deal with students with low skills.
The new logic of accountability means that
teachers cannot separate themselves from failing
students. They are unable to blame tests,
management, socio economic status or
students. 'But accountability closes off
these avenues of emotional relief', and
intensifies fear of failure. Strong negative
emotions and demoralization often result.
Accountability means external goods are valued
over internal ones. Teachers now become not
assessor but assessed, and this increases their
vulnerability. Again, this vulnerability
arises from intrinsic uncertainty.
Hargreaves has also addressed the debate about
accountability, and worries that those schools
that seem to fail more often are those where their
kids are from low economic status. He
describes earlier attempts to define school
failure, and notes how they always seem to blame
schools in poor communities. He draws upon
the work by Darwin on the 'emotion of disgust'
(56), which had an evolutionary function to
isolate contaminating persons. He cites the
work by Sennett on how disgust is attached to the
marginalised in order to exclude them, a part of
"an emotional economy of social exclusion".
He notes that emotions are welcomed in primary
school, but seen as intrusive in secondary
schools, because of a move towards [Bourdieu's]
distinction. [There is also a hint of a
Parsonian shift towards impersonality and
universality]. There is an underlying link between
practices of social distinction and school failure
based on the emotion of disgust.
Steinberg is convinced by this argument and finds
disgust in the media as well as in herself.
Disgust could well act as 'the emotional undertow
of school failure' (57) underlying rational and
utilitarian views on assessment, and appearing
mixed with sympathy, pity - and anger. Even
teaching to the test might be a way of avoiding
'suffering the disgust of the powerful'.
Other forms of accountability like inspections or
curriculum revisions also evoke 'intense and
negative emotions'. There is a case study
(Jeffrey and Woods 1996) of the effects of school
inspections which produced a lot of preparatory
work characterized by '"fear, anguish, anger,
despair, depression, humiliation, grief and
guilt"', a loss of confidence and feelings of
worthlessness even with a good report. [I
think it's the humiliation of being tested by lay
people]. The more professional teachers were
the most emotional. Other studies have
investigated the emotional impact of performance
related pay, and again showed that teachers were
insulted, felt betrayed and resentful at having to
go through so many hoops get a pay rise. The
researchers noticed that negative emotions can
lead to cynicism and weariness, the programmes of
curriculum reform to the usual feelings of anger
and resentment, inadequacy, confusion and
demoralisation. The loss of professional
control seems to be crucial combined with having
to complete 'an onerous and depressing task'
while not being trusted by their own
administration. Few teachers said that these
changes had led to improvements. Researchers
found more 'technocratic' stuff with meetings and
bureaucratic language. Conformity was
rewarded rather than individual progressive
change. Overall, teachers had suffered
trauma.
The problem is that accountability means more
paperwork which is a distraction from real
work. It involves distrust of the teachers
word. It 'generates insecurity and guilt by
implying there is one perfect way to teach and
assess, which is contained in long, disconnected
lists of abstract criteria that no teacher can
only measure up to' (58). Functional
emotional labour is clearly required to avoid
negative experiences feeding forward into
assessment. Accountability might help to
'set emotional rules of impersonal distance and
disengaged objectivity that come to govern
classroom assessment'[I'm not sure if she sees
this as a good or a bad thing]
So overall the mosaic shows that teachers have to
grapple with emotional complexity. They are
sympathetic to failure if the student is not to
blame, but angry when s/he is. Formative
assessment is particularly stressful when feedback
has to be provided, especially where the emotional
rules have not been changed. Assessment is
itself 'emotionally conflicted' (59) 'because it
confronts teachers with the limits of their
efficacy' yet is essential to teaching for
internal and external reasons. This conflict
should be addressed. Accountability
especially when high stakes standardized
assessment is involved seems to lead to teacher
demoralisation, especially in some circumstances
where teachers have little chance of
success. Teachers are often left 'angry,
ashamed, professionally weary' and insecure.
Teachers are fighting back, though [good -- not
just dong emotional labour to cope?] .
Assessment might be made more '"emotionally
sound"'. More positive emotions might be
encouraged to motivate teachers and students, with
maximum autonomy within 'institutional goal
structures'. Feedback is necessary, but it
should explain 'both the required and the actual
performance' so that it becomes perceived as more
valuable. Teachers need to feel empowered to
try different ways to teach. They need to be
able to do the right sort of emotional labour, [ie
adapt] working collaboratively, and feeling able
to express emotions, with support, otherwise they
will simply try to avoid unpleasant emotions.
The emotional rules have changed, but in unhelpful
ways. The traditional emotional rules said
students were responsible for their own failure,
and formative assessment acted as an 'emotional
safety valve', but this is now been taken away,
and teachers are urged to reform their teaching as
a response. Accountability also prevents
distance because teachers are seen as accountable
to taxpayers and as [entirely?] responsible for
failure. [Oddly, Steinberg sees these two
developments as contradictory though]
Teachers now need to start doing different sorts
of emotional labour [why not political
resistance?] Zembylas is optimistic that
this could lead to transformation, by showing that
the old emotional roles were contingent [the new
regime is transparently a pain in the ass -- we
don't need emotional analysis?] . If
teachers 'accept the validity of their emotions
and reflect on their inherent value judgments,
they can gain insights... [Which] ... might
lead them to disturbing and subverting the
emotional rules' [but they have already been
subverted as argued above, and not in a way that
liberates teachers]. Good old inservice
education will do this [intellectuals lead the
way]
In conclusion, assessment is an emotional practice
and we should study the emotions involved.
The work so far has showed a contradiction between
accountability and formative assessment [I don't
really understand this, she seems to say that the
emotional rules are different, but this assumes
that formative assessment can retain its
neutrality?]. Teachers require more support
as well as more challenge. The field is
under researched. We might investigate the
emotions involved in order to bring about change
and improvement.
References include:
Hargreaves, A (2004) 'Distinction and disgust: The
emotional politics of school failure', but this is
unfortunately a course document for the University
of Pretoria.
Jeffrey, B and Woods, P (1996) 'Feeling
depersonalised: The social construction of
emotions during an OFSTED inspection'. Cambridge
Journal of Education 26 (3): 325 - 44.
Solomon, R (2003) What is an emotion?
Classic and contemporary readings.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stough, L and Emmer, E. (1998) 'Teachers'
emotions and test feedback'. Qualitative
Studies in Education 11 (2): 341-61
Sutton, R and Wheatley, K (2003) 'Teachers'
emotions in teaching: A review of the literature
and directions for future research'. Educational
Psychology Review, 15 (4): 327-358
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