Heightened conceptions of assessment as school accountability : understanding the impact of improvement-oriented assessment resources on New Zealand teachers’ conceptions of assessment

New Zealand is increasing resources available to teachers to support assessment for learning. Teacher responses (n=161) to the Teacher Conceptions of Assessment inventory indicated significantly increased agreement with assessment as school accountability since a 2001 national survey. However, only the improvement conception predicted the practices teachers used to define assessment (β=.32) and there was a nonsignificant correlation between school accountability and improvement conceptions. Interviews with 26 teachers were used to investigate how policy effects of a new assessment system and professional development system were contributing to the changes of beliefs. Interviews identified teachers who saw the new resources as contributing to both improvement and accountability conceptions, while a second group failed to make that connection.