‘It's missing the heart of what writing is about’: teachers' interpretations of writing assessment criteria

Primary school teachers in England are responsible for the statutory  assessment of writing, using a set of criteria. The aim of this research  was to analyse the responses of teachers to the criteria at the expected  standard. An elicitation exercise with 10 primary school teachers was  conducted, where teachers talked through their interpretations of the  criteria. Qualitative, inductive coding was undertaken to provide a rich  and deep understanding of teachers' understandings of the assessment  criteria. The perceptions of teachers are shown to be varied and  complex. Definitions of the criteria were diverse, and fundamentally  different concepts of writing were identified, which points to sources  of misunderstanding. Limitations of the assessment criteria themselves  are also highlighted, which caused disagreement among the teachers. The  findings show evidence of threats to the validity and reliability of the  assessment and its use as an accountability measure because of the lack  of confidence in inferences drawn from the use of the criteria in the  assessment of writing.