School assessment: does error need to lead to failure?

Abstract

This study presents both bibliographic and empirical research results on the effects of understanding errors in the assessment of learning and its consequences in the teaching-learning processes. The objective is to highlight the perspective of understanding assessment as an integral part of the learning process, as opposed to the traditional view of judgment and classification. The research was carried out in a school in the Municipal Education Network of Rio de Janeiro and investigated how managers, teachers, and students mean evaluation and error, seeking to understand the impacts of these conceptions on pedagogical practices and students’ well-being. The results indicate difficulties in reconciling the search for a formative assessment perspective with the tendency to condemn errors as synonymous with academic failure.

Learning Assessment; Error; Teaching-Learning; School Failure; Pedagogical Practice