Preservice Elementary Teachers' Assessment Beliefs

The purpose of this study is to investigate preservice elementary teachers' assessment beliefs. To achieve that, a Likert-type scale developed by Genc (2005) was applied to 264 preservice elementary teachers. The scale including four subdimensions (formative, summative, traditional and alternative assessment) consists of a total of 34 items. The data were analyzed using both parametric (t-test) and non-parametric (Kruskal Wallis and Mann Whitney-U tests) statistical tests. Assessment beliefs of the preservice elementary teachers were investigated with respect to the following variables: gender, GPA (grade point average) and type of the secondary school graduated. As opposed to school type variable, the analysis of the data produced a statistically significant result on gender and GPA variables. The results revealed that preservice elementary teachers received the highest score on formative assessment subdimension and the lowest score on alternative assessment subdimension.