En roliger dans? : Svenska skolors första tolkning av innebörden i lokala betygskriterier i tre ämnen för skolår åtta

Sammanfattning: When the new curriculum for Swedish compulsory school (Lpo 94) and a newgrading system were introduced, criteria for assessment were given only for thefinal marks. For the term marks schools were supposed to set up their own criteria.Originally the school authorities gave no reasons why teachers should dothis, but gradually some reasons appeared in various school documents. Onereason was that if the criteria were created locally it would give opportunities forteachers and learners to discuss the learning goals in the classroom, and therewould also be discussions between colleagues about teaching, learning and assessment.Another reason was that this way the system would be clear to thelearners so they would know what was required of them.In my research I study how teachers from 93 different schools interpreted thenew ideas in the curriculum in their local plans and criteria for assessment forthree different subjects: English, Chemistry and Physical Education.The first part of the study shows that when local criteria were first set up, thelearners had not been involved, and the system was not presented clear enoughfor them to understand the contents. Neither had there been any in-depth discussionsin the staff rooms about assessment. In many cases the language of thedocuments is such that both pupils and parents must find it very difficult to understandwhat is required in order to achieve a certain mark. One reason for thisis, in my opinion, that teachers never quite understood why they should draw uplocal school plans and criteria, nor did they realize the difference between nationaland local criteria.In part two of the study the focus is on one subject, English. What research andwhat new ideas had made their way into the English syllabus and how were theyinterpreted in the local documents? It turns out, however, that only few schoolshad integrated the most significant new ideas, like learner influence and interculturalcompetence in their goals and criteria. The most characteristic feature wasrather that many schools created new goals for English. Most frequent were criteriathat had to do with grammar. More than half of the schools presented anumber of criteria for grammar skills, while in the syllabus grammar is onlymentioned once.The reason why grammar is so heavily emphasised is probably not that mostEnglish teachers in Sweden find grammar the most important aspect of Englishteaching. I would rather suspect that quite a few teachers did not have anystrategies when they were given the task to formulate criteria, something theyhad never done before. Instead of starting by asking the obvious question “Whatare the most important aspects of my subject?” it seems likely that many teachersstarted out with the question “What can easily be tested in my subject?” Theanswer as regards English is of course “grammar”, and so the criteria are full ofgrammar objectives.Obviously the teachers were not properly informed about why they should formulateassessment criteria. They had had very little in-service training about thenew syllabus and no training at all to make them better prepared for this task.Consequently they were not prepared to interpret the new ideas that were presentedin Lpo 94.