Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Studies in Educational Evaluation journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/stueduc The power of a basic assessment course in changing preservice teachers’ conceptions of assessment Adi Levy-Vered a, ⁎ , Fadia Nasser-Abu Alhija b a Beit Berl College, Israel b Tel Aviv University, Israel ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Conceptions of assessment Student evaluation Preservice teachers’ education ABSTRACT This study explores preservice teachers' conceptions of assessment and examines whether and how they change during an e-learning basic assessment course. This was done by addressing the following questions: What characterizes preservice teachers’ conceptions of assessment? And to what extent do preservice teachers' as- sessment conceptions change after participation in a basic assessment course? Data were collected at the be- ginning and the end of the course from 297 Israeli preservice teachers, using Brown's Teacher’s Conceptions of Assessment Inventory (TCoA). Descriptive results revealed that most dominant were the conceptions of as- sessment as improving learning and teaching. Surprisingly, improvement and accountability were highly cor- related in a positive way. The pre-post analysis of students' conceptions indicated that all improvement and some of the irrelevant conceptions significantly changed following the course. The implications for teacher prepara- tion programs, which strive to create a conceptual change toward assessment, are discussed. 1. Introduction Classroom assessment is affected by many factors, among which teachers' beliefs about assessment is one of the most important (Moiinvaziri, 2015). Teachers' beliefs about assessment affect how they implement, interpret and respond to evaluative practices (Brown & Gao, 2015). A fundamental premise of teacher education programs is to prepare preservice teachers for the changes and challenges of the 21st century. Training programs are expected to prepare them for a class- room that may be far different from the one they experienced in ele- mentary and high school. Therefore, they should be prepared for in- novative teaching and assessment approaches (Kayange & Msiska, 2016; Kim, Choi, Han, & So, 2012; UNESCO, 2016). Changing assess- ment paradigms, in particular recognition of the importance of for- mative assessment for learning practices, have generated great interest in assessment knowledge and perceptions in the teacher education phase (Brown, 2011). Research over the last three decades has acknowledged the domi- nant role of teachers' conceptions. Teachers' conceptions of teaching, learning, and curricula strongly influence how teachers teach and what student learn or achieve (Brown, 2009; Muis & Foy, 2010; Opre, 2015; Savasci-Acikalin, 2009). There have been a series of studies empha- sizing the fundamental relationship between teachers' conceptions of assessment and improvement of learning and teaching (Black & William, 1998; Popham, 2008). Other studies focused on investigating teachers' conceptions and beliefs toward assessment and their re- lationship to practice (Fives & Buehl, 2012; McMillan, 2001; Stiggins, 2004). In the last quarter of the previous century, assessment reform movements shifted from teachers' overreliance on standardized tests to increasing formative appraisals of the learning qualities in light of the curriculum objectives and sociocultural theories of learning (Brown, 2008a; Shepard, 2006). Relatively little prior research has attended explicitly to the variety of possible factors that impact teachers’ knowledge about assessment and their views or practices (Fulmer, Lee, & Tan, 2015). The study of teachers' conceptions of assessment, specifically among preservice teachers, is even more important at times of educational reform (Vandeyar & Killen, 2003), and in an era of a rising awareness of the need of assessment-literate teachers. The term ‘assessment literacy’ refers to the possession of knowledge about the basic principles of sound assessment practice, including its terminology and the develop- ment and use of assessment methodologies and techniques. According to Stiggins (1995), educators with assessment literacy know what they assess, why they assess, how to assess, what the possible problems with assessment are, and how to prevent them from occurring. They are also familiar with the possible negative consequences of poor, inaccurate assessment. Recently, the authors (2015) have reported that https://doi.org/10.1016/j.stueduc.2018.04.003 Received 30 November 2017; Received in revised form 23 March 2018; Accepted 16 April 2018 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: adi.levi_verd@beitberl.ac.il (A. Levy-Vered). Studies in Educational Evaluation 59 (2018) 84–93 0191-491X/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T