Use of interactive--informal assessment practices: New Zealand secondary students' conceptions of assessment

This study aimed to investigate how students' conceptions of assessment relate to one another, how students define assessment, and how student conceptions of assessment relate to their definitions of assessment. A nationally representative sample of New Zealand secondary students (N 1⁄4 705) responded to a 45-item Conceptions of Assessment inventory and a list of 12 assessment practices. Well-fitting measurement models were found. The more students agreed that assessment was to help them improve the more they associated assessment with teacher-controlled practices. Further, the more students perceived assessment as irrele- vant the more they defined it as interactiveeinformal practices. Thus, more student-oriented practices were conceived as creating a positive social environment that was irrelevant to learning.