How do Parents interpret Report Cards?
Roxine Hameister
Introduction
For teachers it is easy to see the reactions of students when they first view a report card: joy, disbelief, sadness, or angry demands of "how did you give them such and such a mark". As a teacher I have often wondered what happens when the students deliver the reports to their parents. What information does the family get from the report card? How do they make sense of the comments and the marks? What do they do with the sense they make of it? What systems have families developed to deal with the information contained in the report card?
I interviewed one of my students and her mother, and a teacher at my school, in an effort to generate some insight into these questions. I used videotaped the conversations and analyzed the data in order of interview, first the mother, then the student, and finally the teacher. Efforts were made to have the analysis and comments for each participant complete in themselves. In my conclusion I made some comparisons as to the different uses each subject gives to the report card information.
Reporting on the progress of students seems to be a teacher directed and a parent driven process. Parents understand that the teacher evaluates their child on the curriculum covered and then produces a report on this progress in the form of a report card. For this to be a truly effective process students must become part of the process. Students need to know how the system works and that their actions have a direct input into the system that generates their marks. There are several models of how to accomplish this mark generation that meet the needs of the student, to build self confidence and self esteem, as well as assure the parents that progress is being made. The teacher thus has the information to fulfil their responsibilities under the School Act, which is to report on progress of the student. This system also serves the purpose of assuring the teacher that they have managed to teach something.
There are many systems and here is one that would meet all these goals. I use parts of this in my classroom. Since I am new to the school students are just getting used to this process. This system generates a lot of small measurements, one can have several dozen measurements from which to develop the final mark. These are generated from parts of the process or skill being taught. These small continuous measurement will all add up, with the result being a holistic picture of the student's progress.
Several factors must be considered in doing this evaluation, including Gardener's Eight Intelligences. Using activities that allow students to learn in these Eight Intelligence's will yield measurements that reflect these learning styles. When students feel they are 'smart' in one or the other of the Eight Intelligences and have had successes in activities designed around their learning style they feel 'smart' in within those perimeters. For example they might feel 'smart' in the naturalist intelligence even if they feel they are not 'smart' in the mathematical intelligence.
This process is successful in developing a positive self-esteem but it is necessary for the teacher to provide students with a scaffold that will allow transfer from one intelligence to another. Through this they feel empowered or to use Grundy's phrase of emancipation through the process of enlightenment and develop positive self esteem. Because students need to feel empowered.
The Adult Basic Education model can be used to provide a model to build this process on. This involves a series of practice activities that have the answers provided, the students are empowered to choose to do these activities but they can also choose not to bother, after sufficient time they are asked if they feel they are ready to be evaluated. The students can choose yes and proceed or they may have identified areas they do not understand and feel they need further instruction or practice. Through this series of practices, with the answers being available, they are empowered to decide if they know enough to do the test. They have been allowed to choose if they are to be successful, they own the decision and the resulting evaluations. They are empowered to do the homework and the practice, they have the choice and they know this. The students make their own successes or failures. As part of this process the students define the criteria, for evaluating their work or how the work will be done. Students usually choose the process they feel will be the easiest for them, usually matching their learning style. In effect, they feel empowered to do what they are best at. The result is success and very positive self-esteem.
Using this model it is easy for the teacher to predict the "A" students and the "D" or "F" students, the students who are hard to predict are the "B" and "C" students. It rests on the individual's choice to do the necessary work or to ask for the necessary clarifications as needed. These are difficult choices for the student and it is difficult for the teacher to predict what the students choices might be. If this system is explained and put into practice in a classroom students become interested in these predictions and their subsequent marks. Once this interest and understanding of the process is achieved the mark become a reflection of the students continuous efforts, and allows the teacher to meet the needs of parents in having a report on progress as well as the legal requirements of the School Act.
The School Act requires that teachers must report, in a timely manner, to the parents or guardian of students enrolled in their classes. There are a variety of school district policies and procedures that set guidelines and give suggestions as to how this reporting is to be done.
The School Act states that parents must be informed as to the marks or letter grades their students have achieved at least three times a year. This reporting is to be done in a formal, structured, written format and can be followed or preceded by an interview. The district sets the dates these reports are to be made available to parents. There is a district template to follow in preparing the report card. There must also be at least one other formal contact with the parents, often in the form of the year-end mark and comments on the final report card.
There must be a structured comment on a student's progress and this comment is to be in a "can do" style. The emphasis is on what the student has achieved. Accompanying these documents are formal suggestions as to what the student and parents can do to assist the student's learning. The report card becomes a legal document that can be used to prove or disprove that material has been taught. For this reason the teacher also includes a curriculum overview with the formal report. It is left somewhat to the discretion of the teacher whether or not this overview becomes part of the body of the report card. I have chosen to include this curriculum overview as part of my formal report card. Simply put, parents must receive reports on the progress their children are making in school.
There is considerable variety of styles and formats of report cards used within the province, and even within districts. Even where the format is prescribed there are great differences in the final product. Our district's format is a single page divided into several sections. The initial part is a curriculum overview of what has been taught that term. There are suggestions from district support staff to put these outcomes into readable prose with as little education jargon as possible. The next section is what the student has accomplished in terms of these curriculum outcomes. This is the "can do" part of the report card. This is followed by suggestions from the teacher as to areas that need improvement and what the parents, student, and teacher can do to facilitate these improvements. There are comments on attitude and work habits. A separate page showing the letter grade marks for each of the curricular areas accompanies the structured written report.
In elementary schools, the first term report card is sent to the parents either before or after a conference in late November or early December. A second report is sent home in mid- March. The year end report card has two sets of marks, one for the term and one for the entire year, along with a written report for the third term. The final mark is to reflect the students' standing, with reference to the entire years leaning expectations.
Teachers construct the marks and comments on the report cards consult test marks, anecdotal comments, and classroom observations, and using a variety of assessment strategies to arrive at the marks and comments they put on the report card. They try to explain what the student has accomplished and what skills or processes are difficult for the student. They indicate how parents, teachers, and students can make efforts to assist the student in gaining the necessary skills or understandings of process or content. This is the formal role of reporting the question remains as to what information is passed on to the readers.
Purpose
Little is known of what parents think of report cards, how they interpret them, and what use they make of them when they do receive them. Indeed for an area in which there has been so much change in the last decade, there has been remarkably little research on what parents want from report cards. We have made many changes over the years in reaction to what we think parents want but we have not simply asked them what they want.
My purpose was two fold. I wished to determine if there was any organized system of interpreting the report card that had been developed by the subjects. Secondly, I wanted to determine if there was any congruence among the three groups involved with a report card. My question was "What information do you get from the report card? What do you do with this information?" As the interviews progressed I was able to the elaborate on the questions and elicit more explanation from both the mother and student. The teacher I interviewed gives a very general overview of the role she plays in the evaluation process.
Research Design
To develop data I chose to interview representatives of the three groups who deal with report cards, i.e., students, parents, and teachers. Brown (1992) suggests that it is possible to design experiments while engineering innovative educational environments. I am interested in the reporting process and how to develop positive self-esteem in my students. While using strategies to develop self-esteem in class it is possible to develop an experiment to determine the effects on the students and their families of these strategies. Brown goes on to explain that we as teachers are "concerned with the outputs of the system, a concern that leads us to look for new forms of assessment". (Brown, p.143) He also outlines the possible types of information that it is possible to generate from video being used as a research tool. I chose a family from my classroom and interviewed the mother and her daughter separately. I then interviewed a teacher in the same school. She is not the teacher of the participant student. I set the video camera in the library and participated in the interview by having it work automatically. While this was somewhat of a lab setting it would difficult to do this project in the home at the time of the event so I relied on their memories.
I asked all three participants the same initial question and allowed the conversation to be open-ended. Brown explained that "it is the skilled interviewer's job to pose questions that are sensitive to the bandwidth of competence within which each individual student can navigate". (p.157) While he is speaking of students, I felt this applied to the questions I asked all the participants. I ask only about areas they had competence in. The analysis I made was of the comments made on the videotapes and I made some efforts to incorporate what informal information I had gleaned on the family and the school community. This information was used in terms of setting and background on the school and family.
I followed up the interview by showing the participants the draft of the report and asked them to check it for accuracy. All three participants stated that it was more or less what they said and intended to say. I kept notes on my reactions to the process and consulted them for my project comments. During this time I followed the advice from Grundy, in Developing Curriculum Praxis, where the facilitators role is to allow the participants to participate with no instructions to how they are to act. I asked all three participants to reflect on their experiences with report cards. The model for the report writing is developed from the set of procedures given in Charles' article Educational Research and its Sources of Data. Using his definition, this is "non-experiment action research" that tries to "describe and explain events and situations as they exist or once existed." (p.21) There is a cycle or moments in research, according to Grundy these are in part "planning, acting, observing and reflecting moments..." (p.153) He goes on to explain that this happens at two levels, reflection to produce enlightenment within our practice, as well as without in a wider social context. The next step in this process is not included in the study but could be a follow up project involving the new report card.
Participants
I chose to interview a student from my grade 6/7 class, and her mother. It turned out to be easier to only interview the mother because the father has a very busy work schedule that did not work well with the school schedule. The interviews were recorded in the library of my school with only the mother and another younger child present. The student was interviewed immediately after the mother's interview with the mother present but not participating in the interview. The teacher is a colleague at my school and although she is teaching a kindergarten class this year, she has taught intermediate grades in past years.
The mother and daughter I interviewed are part of a traditional family with a mother who remains at home to raise the four girls in the family while the father works outside the home as an independent contractor. The couple recently established a tourism related business operating out of their home. They seem to be small town, middle class, and people who are very active in all aspects of their children's lives. The student interviewed is the oldest of four girls and is not only a very active competitive athlete but participates in any other sport she can find.
The school has a small, very stable, student population. We are the only K to 7 school in the sub-division; there are separate and larger primary and intermediate schools in this small community near a larger city in B.C. The school has about 130 students who mainly come from two-parent families. The parents are very supportive of the school. There is a great range of activities organized in the community to involve children after school. Parents keep their children very busy and involved in sports, or the arts such as dance, singing, or music. There are no clubs organized around more academic areas such as science or chess. There is very little noticeable crime or vandalism in the school. Team sports are very popular with soccer and baseball being the main sports played.
The students are usually with the same teacher for two years, I will have this student again in grade 7 and will probably have her three sisters in my classes when they get to these grades, if I remain at this school. Because of this continuity it is easy to get to know families, and know your future students in your class before they come into the classroom. You can easily know all the students in the school by name after a year or two.
I am a teacher of more than 20 years experience with a B.Ed. and am currently working on my M.Ed. with an interest in Social Studies and how children develop a sense of place.
Classroom
The classroom is a grade 6/7 split. There are 16 grade 7 students and 10 grade 6 students. The student interviewed is from the grade 6 group. I follow the British Columbia curriculum and have established a rotation system for covering the Science and Social Studies curriculums over a two-year period.
During the course of the year the students are given opportunity to set goals as part of the Personal Planning curriculum. For most major assignment we develop the criteria for marking as a group. These criteria are referred to during the writing and editing of these projects. The marks are summarized by averaging with the students being aware if any assignment is carrying more weight than others. All assignments are returned to the students and it is possible for them to review the mark book whenever they wish. In turn it is possible for students to determine their marks for the report card before they are handed out. I often read the Learning Outcomes from the IRP's at the beginning of a unit of study. There are no evaluation surprises for the student in this classroom.
Data Analyses
Vided interviews made up the major source of my data. To this I added anecdotal information I have on the student, her family, and the school community. I relied on the parent and student to inform me as to the uses they derived from the report card. Casual observations of the student during class resulted in some of my comments as to her handling of formative comments on class assignments.
The video was viewed and analyzed with efforts made to identify frameworks they might be using to interpret the information available on the report cards. I looked at the body language as well as what the speakers said. The body language often gives insights into the intended meaning of the answer. The videotape was reviewed several times. The first time involved looking for themes and big ideas, then a second for possible areas to interpret for the report. The third view consisted of recording a chronology of the conversation in brief such as 2:55 S.- talks about files or 34: 2 A. - bragging. This allowed me to find sections on the tape faster for analysis. I then transcribed what I felt were key and typical sections of dialogue for all three participants. The report was then constructed around these essential issues.
When the draft was complete I read the participants the parts concerning them and gave them the opportunity to add or make corrections to what I had written. I did not video these conversations but kept running notes and the occasional direct quote of dialogue. I focused the conversation on areas of ambiguity in the original conversation while recording any further thoughts they had on the issue. The conversations lasted about 10 to 15 minutes for each participant and happened in the classroom for the parent, and later the child, and the staff room for the teacher. These comments and clarifications were included in the body of the text.
Results and Discussion
Parents comments;
The parent was comfortable in the school and with the interview process. From the very beginning of the process this mother was eager to participate in the research. Brown explains that a Hawthorn effect often happens, by being interviewed this parent felt that she was part of a process of effecting change and that things were better as a result, in reality nothing has changed in reference to her daughter. (2.S) In the initial comments she made it very clear that school reports are read, and thought about, and acted upon, in her family.
1-R: What information do you get from A's report card?
2-S: Well it varies because each year it changes because I just looked in her report card file... I have got all these report cards. I can take and show them to Roxine and tell her what I think of every one. There have been some good ones and some disappointing ones.
3-R: What do you expect to get and what information do you get? If you could talk about this last one.
4-S: Well it's not the last but the second to last one. What I look for, of course, is what the child immediately looks for, is they want to know their grades not the written stuff.
5-R: So you look at the marks?
6-S: Well I am usually told the marks as they are flying in the door. All "A's", or I got so many "A's" or all I got is a "C" or what ever the case may be, they do not read it they just look at the marks. Mom sits down, then I read it. To a non reader I'll read it out loud to the child.
7-R: So you share the report card with the child.
8-S: Oh yes we read the report a few times, and we go through it with the child too, each part of it.
This parent has a report card file for each of her school age children and can refer to them. (1-S) This is an admirable activity for a parent to undertake and I feel shows a great interest in her children's schooling. The report cards have received mixed reviews over the years, some were seen as far better than others, (we have changed the format each year for the last few years). She does not give the impression that this is a negative comment on the student's work that year, or on the teacher for that matter, but rather a negative comment on the report card format. I made this inference from further comments in this conversation in which she refers to the teacher as an "awesome teacher, who did great things with the students" The parent is trying to develop a system to interpret the information she receives from the report card.
At (4-S) S makes an assumption that her children looks at her grades and this is what she first looks at. The marks or grades are a very fast way of determining if the report card is going to meet your expectations or not and S makes the assumption that the child looks at this part and not the written comments.
She refers to the fact that she sits down and reads it (the report card) she said this in a very empathic tone of voice. (6-S) The changes in format make it difficult to follow a child's progress from year to year since the standards and forms are not always comparable. (2-S)
This parent was eager to talk about the report card and to have her opinion heard. She was looking forward to telling me about the files and all the previous years report cards and that there were things that could have been improved in them. (2-S) We did not go into this for several reasons, the main one being professional. They were not my report cards and it could be considered professional misconduct for me to comment on fellow teachers' methods.
Marks seem to be the first thing looked at by both the child and the parent. (6-S and 16-A) This is followed quickly by the parent reading the text of the report card to the child involved. It was not clear if the mother read it herself then read it to the non reader (upon later clarification the mother stated she does not pre read because the children are eager to hear the comments) but the comments are very quickly read and then re-read, not just once but several times. Efforts are made at this early stage to include the child in the process and to begin to construct some meaning from the comments and the marks. (6-S) The idea that the reports are read several times (8-S) indicates that the parents are trying to understand the report and get all the meaning they can from the comments.
The reports are kept from year to year and the progress of a child can be followed by referring to the previous reports. (2-S) This very organized mother wants to monitor her children's progress in school. Elsewhere in the interview the mother explained that getting her own report cards was one of the most important things she can remember about school.
"When I was young I liked taking my reports home, I can remember that." is how S recalls her experiences with report cards as a student. Report cards were important to her and her family and she seems to be modeling this in her parenting in how she is addressing the report cards with her children. The mother's interest, and the importance she places on the report cards, can not help but come across to the children. The student commented that she is very excited to take the report card home to her parents. It must be noted that the report cards this student receives are very positive with most, if not all marks being "A" along with very positive comments on her work habits and other aspects of her school life.
The mother commented that she had also been a competent student in school and that their report cards possibly never had any negative comments, for either mother or daughter.
9-S: "I like the fact that you have covered all curricular areas and in particular this year. You were not only new to the school you were new to the children. I really appreciated this introduction you gave to the parents. [Referring to a separate letter I had given out at the "Meet the teacher Night" in which I introduced myself, explained how I teach, and outlined my expectations]. It introduces yourself and gave some personal glimpses about you. ... "[She goes on to outline the brief comments on the curriculum areas we would work on as a class]
10-S: To us that was very personal not this is what we are told to teach you by the district and this is the curricular for this class for the district. It was personable.... focusing directly on you and your classroom.
11-T: You sound satisfied with the curriculum followed in the class and how your child is doing.
12-S: I want to know what my child is doing. I think one of the most unfair things to do to a child is to treat them all alike. They are not all the same. I want to see my child treated as an individual. I like it when you talk about what you can do, what the child can do, and what the school can do. I like it when there is some bouquet to the child that makes them feel they are progressing.
There are several times in the tape that she refers to the personal touch. ( 9-S and 10-S) She does not want her children to be cogs in a wheel, so to speak, but instead wants them to be educated as individuals and to feel a connection with their teacher.
She felt that the curriculum outcomes were explained in the report card and that the report card was a logical follow up to the introduction and short year overview. (9-S) This was very gratifying to hear, and somewhat humbling, to realize that parents take these things that I do as a matter of professional courtesy, so much to heart.
The mother tries to construct some sense from the teachers' comments. She tries to relate the marks to the comments. (10-S) S tells us that she does not feel it is important that I follow the curriculum blindly but develop the curriculum to suit the needs of the particular class I am teaching. She has trust that I will do as I have said and that I know what is necessary to cover the curriculum for this class. (11-T and 12-S) When I asked her if she was satisfied she went on to explain what she expected in terms of marks, I took this silence to mean that yes she was satisfied with the curriculum followed.
(12-S) shows that this mother feels that the marks are not the most important part of the report and puts far more emphasis on the written comments. The mother described the comments on the report as a bouquet from the teacher to the child, a letter of congratulations on work well done. She does not want all children treated alike and is satisfied that I do not follow a pre-set format for teaching my class.
The chronology of making sense of the report card in this family goes from the very positive "can do" with the associated verbal praise to suggestions for improvement. [It is also to be noted that no mention of rewards for good reports was mentioned. The child did not mention that a cash award for good marks is what she gets or expects.] In the follow up interview the mother stated that she felt that giving rewards for reports was a terrible thing to do. She stated that gratification had to come from within not from something else like money or alcohol or drugs. This seems to be a very firmly held belief in her family.
13- R: "Can we look at different parts of the report?
14- S: Yes, well I like the parts. The way my child can do . It says A can do this and this. I like also like the pat on Attitudes and Work Habits. Sometimes the child is different at home than at school. I like the parts where you give suggestions about A and her work they are used a lot in our family.
15- T: What do you do with them?
16- S: We sit down and talk about them and decide what to do like goals."
The family, after the initial reading, looks at the comments. They like the fact that the report is divided into sections and the personal comments on their child (14-S) This area is also used to help the family find areas needing further work and try to set goals from these. (16-S) This is explained at several points in the tape. As the next term progresses these comments are referred to and the student is encouraged and reminded to be working on the goals, "Mrs. Hameister said ... " is how the comments seem to start.
The mother was told at this point that it is very difficult to find areas needing improvement with a student like A. She replied that this might be true but that each time I have been able to find an area that they all feel is 'right on' and needs to be addressed. They seem to appreciate that the report card is personal, that the child is mentioned by name in the body of the report, and that it is written in understandable English. In her understanding of the report card the mother put great emphasis on the personal nature of the report card and that there be something that the family can build on together as a result of the report card.
This mother does not want her child compared to a larger whole. There seems to be no wish to have her put on a scale with other students her age. She simply wants to know what her child can do. There was no mention made of wanting to have information as to what grade level expectations are. This is a very child centred approach to evaluation. A "can do" report card with suggestions as to areas needing further attention seems to suit the family best. There is no indication in the interview what the parents expect their child to be rated against; they just want to know what she can do in the classroom.
In the follow up interview the mother elaborated that she does not care how the child is supposed to be doing but how she is doing. She sees no point in gauging the students progress against others, either in the class or a greater whole. Provincial results from PLAP Tests would not be helpful to this parent unless they were directly related to her child and the learning experiences of that child.
Teachers, as part of the process of becoming teachers, must develop a view of children and in turn a philosophy of evaluation. Among these many philosophies a child centred approach to teaching is quite common. Teachers who choose this philosophy must make efforts to understand who the children are, and where they are coming from. This helps them see the children in classrooms as individuals, not just students on class list. This involves more than ensuring that the learning situation is suitable for each child. It involves becoming aware of all the factors that might be affecting the students performance. The informal, background information on children is helpful in teaching the child. For example I know that A is involved in competitive swimming and that this probably had given her a mind-set towards learning, and how to deal with suggestions for improvement, that might not be typical of other students in the class. This individualization of children ensures that a classroom teacher does not expect the same reactions from all students on evaluations
The subject family seems to want reports to be as positive as possible with suggestions for improvement. The idea of a bouquet (12-S) and helping the child feel they are making improvements seemed to stem from comments made about an earlier report when the child felt that she was working well and had reached her goal but had received the same mark. The mother went to speak to the teacher and learned that the child was improving but had not reached the next mark level. Perhaps the mother sees this as a weakness in the report card and would like to have these situations clarified in the body of the report card. This is a very "my child's feeling" approach to interpreting the report card.
They want to have all the information so they can make the necessary changes. This positive information is also needed to assist in the motivation of the child for making the necessary changes. The family is very goal oriented and sees goal setting and attainment as being a big part of their lives. This is perhaps unique among the families I have in my class. In all my years of teaching I have not come across another family that is so focused and with such a definite sense of purpose. Education is like any other part of their lives; it has goals that, once met, are replaced by others. There is no sense of mastery but one of continuous improvement.
One could expect, I think, for there to be agreement, in large part, between the parent and the child. There were, however, some surprises.
Students comments:
17-R "When you get your report card what information do you get from it? What do you find out from your report card?
18- A: Well I don't bother with this (pointing to the page with the letter grades on it) I look at this. (Pointing at the page with the written comments)
19- R: Oh, that is interesting The marks aren't important to you
20-. A: Well I do look at the marks but they don't mean anything. This (Pointing to comments) is what tells me how I did this. (Points to the marks)
21- R: This tells you how you did. (Pointing to comments)
22- A: Yes
23-. T: How do you think you are doing
24- A: In math I was surprised at my mark because I do not think that I am doing that well in math."
The student disagreed with her mother at the start when she stated that she reads the comments first. (18-A) She explains that the comments are how she got the marks. I feel this is very sophisticated logic from a 12 year old. The mother thought she looked at the marks and not the comments. (6-S) I asked clarification questions to try to determine if this was really different from the mothers ideas. ( 19-R) The student explained that she looked at the marks, then read the comments to see how she got the marks. (18-A)
The student is looking for validation of her efforts in the classroom; she wants to see what it was that she did that resulted in the marks.(20-A) I think she is so goal orientated that she needs this validation and is always looking down the road to set her next set of goals. I came to this observation from watching this student over the past school year, she is very focused in school and seems to be determined to do her best in all situations either academics or athletics. When her self-evaluation does not match up with the teacher's, (24-A) such as in mathematics, she expressedsurprise because the report does not accord with her view of herself as a math student.
This student takes every comment on a report or on a class assignment very seriously, asks for clarification, and tries to make the improvements suggested. It is not unusual for A to bring me her draft before she hands in her completed assignments. She expects me to make comments for improvement on the draft copy. It must be remembered that A is a provincially ranked athlete who will possibly be leaving the school next year to train at the national facility. Because of this level of competition the child and her family are very used to getting constructive criticism and do not seem to take insult, or express disbelief, but instead try to make changes.
25- R: "Now A, you usually get a good report card.
26-. A: Yes
27- R: Do you show your report card to your friends
28- A: Yes but I do not brag about it."
A explained that she does not brag about her report to her classmates. It is to be noted that the class as a whole is very high achieving. Earlier, she had explained that the marks are not as important as the comments because the comments explain how she got the marks. The comments were what she can do. This is how she makes sense of her report; she reads the comments and tries to see if she agrees with the comments, or if the comments match up with her self-evaluation. Both A and her mother are attempting to connect the marks and the comments and to construct meaning and sense from the whole, and not just the discrete parts. This process seems to have been developed over the years with the lessons learned both in school and in athletics.
The reverse, not having an internal awareness of abilities, is common in students. Here is an anecdotal observation from my classroom that makes this point. Another student in this class, who is also an excellent student, was worried about her report card before she received it. I asked her if she knew her marks on all her assignments (I keep an open mark book the students can look at it any time) She said "Yes". I explained because of this she should know what her report card would be before she received it.
She reluctantly said yes, that she knew her marks, but that if she acts really worried "the good luck" she had that got her the good marks will not leave her and she will continue to get the good marks. When I questioned if the marks came from luck or knowledge she reluctantly admitted that it might be her knowledge but she did not like to think that in case it stopped. I believe this is a feeling held by many students who are excellent achievers. They seem to have no way of determining if they are doing well in school. They have been evaluated for years but still believe in some way that it is only luck and that luck can fail.
A tried to explain that the marks are a reflection of her work. (18 and 20-A ) She did not see that the work she did, such as her ability to make sense of information, to construct order from information, gave her the necessary skills to do well in school. Marks achieved by the student are somehow removed from this process. The teacher is the one responsible for the mark on the report card, the teacher puts it there, and the student does not really make the connection that her learning is reflected in the mark
In the follow up conversation A confirmed that the marks are interesting but the comments are what is really important. She tells of her athletics and how the coach she now has is pushing her to do more and never says that she is doing fine. A said that the coach says "go, go" and she tries her hardest and gets to the point where she can go no farther. "There is a point where you achieve your mark and honestly you cannot get any higher" is how she explains goal attainment or mastery.
Because of the strong coaching model this family has experienced there is little opportunity to see the teacher as a facilitator or enabler of the learning process. This system of competitive sports seems to be one where there is always room for improvement, one is never at mastery. In the classroom, while there is always room for improvement, mastery can be reached in terms of curriculum objectives and criteria can be met.
29- R:" A, I would like you to think what it would be like to be a student who does not get such a good report card. Can you try to think what this would feel like"
30- A: Well I'd read what I need to do and would make my goals when I have to write goals in class (We do this three time a year as part of the Personal Planning Curriculum) I think these people would be disquieted but they should try to do what you say. They should work on their goals.
31- R: Is this what you try to do.
32- A: Yes When we have to write goals I try to do them from this. (Pointing to the comments) I like the written comments, They make me think about how I'm doing and how I learn from the teachers point of view.
33- R: That's pretty sophisticated. You know that don't you?
34- A: Smiled and paused. I look at the (Reads the title from the written comment sheet) Areas to Improve and they become my goals. I like to set goals and the family sets goals of what we should do the achieve them."
In my initial question ( 29-R) I am asking the student to project herself into another's position and to reflect on how this might feel. Setting goals is what A expects from everyone. (30-A) This student sees developing and achieving goals as a way of reacting to the report card. She has it planned out and understands the steps she must go through to be successful. (32-A and 34-A) Both the mother and student conduct similar analyses upon reading the report card. The information is used to develop a plan to improve the student. This is a family that has a system of interpreting and using the report card to their fullest advantage.
The teacher has a different set of understandings about report cards and a different idea of what the parents and students get from a report card.
Teacher's comments
35- R: "What information do you try to put into a report card?
36- T: The report is a snap shot of the main parts of learning in each subject area. They are related to the outcomes. I try to give the child support and suggest ways to improve. I give some idea of the work habits and attitudes. Is see the report as an average of the term or something like a snapshot of the end.
37- R: What do you mean? Can you give more detail.
38- T: The snap shot is if the child is struggling and still needs time to understand the process. The child learns the skills over the term. This shows the skills and the mastery process."
The teacher in her comments mentioned that the report card is a view of the student at that time, how he or she was going, and what had been done. (36-T) The report card is an evaluation tool that has relevance to that point of time. (38-T) The teacher sees the process as telling the parents how the student does on various curriculum tasks with some comment on work and behavioral habits. This is a very straightforward view of reporting. It is seen as passing along information on the student to the parents. The information is cast in terms of the learning outcomes with some efforts made at commenting on work habits and attitudes.
39- T: "There are always problems with the appropriate comments. If it is a good student I try to find an interest to explore beyond what we do in class.
40-R: Is this what you try to do with gifted and enriched?
41- T: Yes.
42- R: We are changing our report card model to a checklist. What do you think of this?
43- T: Simplicity is best. It will be an indicator, a more generic report card. I would rather an interview, to explain and have samples of the [student's] work and be able to share my anecdotal comments. The less you say sometimes the better."
The teacher wants it to be simple. (42-T) In earlier conversation, she explained a problem she had had with parents who took a comment she made on the report card very seriously and thought they had a major problem with their child, when in reality it was a comment on a minor though important incident.(39-T) She feels that the report card is very serious and wants the opportunity to see parents reactions and to be able to make the necessary clarifications and corrections to their understanding of her comments. The idea of simpler being better refers to the idea that with the current model of reporting we use, it can take a very long time to produce the actual writing, not to mention the mark development. ( 43-T) Each report card can take some teachers hours to write. The new model is seen as a time saving effort, a generic checklist, that will be linked to a cover sheet with the term's learning outcomes outlined. The need for simplicity might also be a reaction to the fear of parents misinterpreting comments.
In the follow- up conversation the teacher states that often parents see the negative comments as a stab at them and do not get to the positive pats of the report. The comments that are made on the report cards last forever and stay in the minds of the parents and children for the rest of their lives. She feels that this is a very dangerous situation and that it is always better to error on the cautious side.
This teacher wants the report card to be personal, but she wants to be able to have examples of the child's work and to meet the parents face to face to talk about the child. This is very much in agreement with what the mother wants in a report card; a very personal, child centred report. The teacher seems to put little importance on the areas that need to be improved and the possibility of setting goals from these comments. She used this section to clarify the efforts made by the student and not as part of the evaluation process.
Conclusions
Evaluation and its interpretation seems to be a very personal matter, with each party attempting to get what they need out of the process. Parents want to have personal comments on their child put into the most positive light possible. They also seem to want to have a few things they can use to work on with the child. These areas in which they can help the child improve can be in the academic or social areas and are, at least in part, an effort to feel part of the process of their child's education. Sending a child off to school for several hours a day can be a great leap of faith for many parents and they often feel left out of the process. The child is off away from them doing things over which they have little control. Their efforts at finding areas to improve and work on as a family allow them to enter into the process.
Students seem to react to the marks and use them to develop some self-esteem as well as the comments to develop goals. The idea of setting personal goals is new in elementary school and one that is getting a great deal of effort applied to it. Students often do not know how to find things to improve; they have no idea of what they are meant to be like. From the students point of view they are as they are and have no skills to make sense of, or to change. They have not been taught how to use the information they get on report cards. They see it as a statement about them and how they did. It is seen as an entirely summative process not a formative process.
The only time we teach formative evaluation, and what to do with comments, is in Language Arts when we edit written work. This is a process of having someone read your written efforts and make corrections or suggestions for improvement. The suggestions and comments are then followed and the written project resubmitted. There is little effort invested in this very important process in other areas.
If teachers see reporting and evaluation as a summative process, which is often the case, we can have a problem. Teaching, I feel, is formative. We should always be giving students information, skills and processes that will allow them to make their way in the world. We, as a profession, seem to have omitted a very important part of the process, how students and their families can use evaluations.
We have made the assumption that students understand that something is taught, that they work on it in some fashion to gain their own understanding of it, and there is an external assessment (with necessary comments on progress). These assessments are then developed into a mark. This assessment process is for the teacher; to determine if the student learned what the teacher thought was taught. It is also used to determine what progress students are making and what areas are still in need of work.
Little effort seems to be made in developing the ability of the child to make order from information in the form of marks on report cards. Reporting should not be merely a " feel good process"; it is an evaluation tool that is used to track development. This is not to say that people cannot feel good about evaluation and that mastery can not be reached but the evaluation document is part of a greater package. These comments only hold true if the assessment practices are mainly tests or assignments that are evaluated by the teacher and have no component of student participation in the evaluation process.

Personal Comments on Project
Brown explained the Hawthorne effect in his article Design Experiments, where he argues that the process of being interviewed empowers the participants in a positive way. This seems to have happened with this student, she has asked how the report is coming along and tells me she plans on writing a letter to "my boss" about her feelings about the new reporting process. She is not happy with the idea of a generic checklist. Nothing has changed except this student feels very comfortable and confident about he ideas, after all her teacher is writing about it in her University Masters course, which has great importance in her eyes. This will serve as a caution to me in future projects, to realize that the participants take it very seriously.
I learned about research. I learned that it is possible to construct a research project from very little. If there is something that one is wondering about, within the classroom or in the profession as a whole, it is possible to create a small research project that will serve the two fold purpose of generating data and interpreting it. It is the interpretation and reflection that changes one; this change is the real value of the research.
To the greater body of learned educational practice this project might add very little but to the general ability of the teacher, and as one who can scaffold the art of teaching for others, it adds much. The teacher is no longer a technician doing the task of passing on information or skills but a researcher who engages in self reflection. Research is a strategy to use in becoming more professional. Brown describes this as " contributing to a theory of learning, a theoretical aim that has always been a keystone of our work, and contributing to practice. In the end it will all add up to the critical mass and very much like my evaluation model the many little parts will give a holistic picture of the practice of teaching. Potter and Wetherell, feel this is a new form of research that will become more common in the field of social research
If I were to do this project again I would construct it in a very different fashion, according to Jordan and Henderson it might be best to give the students a report card and record the action in the classroom, this would eliminate the time lag and having to use their later reflections.
Wilson's article on ethics seems to indicate that everyone has a dislike of being investigated and that everyone has something to hide. I do not agree with this. I have studied history and understand the problems with recording events after they have happened. It is not that people lie or intentionally distort. They have a story of the events they participated in and try to tell the story. It is up to the listener to sort out the reality at the time, the best example is the mother and her idea that the children did not read the comments that was contradicted by the child, it is dangerous to try to say what another does in a situation. Tell your story, tell your opinion, but be prepared to see that there are other opinions and interpretations of events. This is what we have in this report card story, three interpretations of the same event, all different, but all very legitimate.
During this study I had the feeling of the overwhelming responsibility and the real dangers involved in report card writing. It is one of the most difficult things I do as a teacher. I hate judging and putting it down on paper. I really believe that given time I can teach almost anything to almost anyone. Reporting is a terminating process. It signals an end to a segment of teaching and learning.
Reporting is so very final and it is humbling that parents reread the reports and take everything to heart. I was humbled by this families use of my report cards. It is difficult to deal with this responsibility, to misquote from the Rubyat of Omar Khayam "... the moving finger writes and having writ moves on and all thy piety and wit can not call it back to change or erase a word of it." We cannot fail to see the serious business we are about when we make the marks on paper; they stay in the hearts and minds of parents and children for the rest of their lives. Tread softly teacher; tread softly.
Brown, A.L., (1992). Design Experiments. Journal of Learning Science, 2, 141-178
Charles, C.M. (1995). Chapter 2: Educational Research & its Sources of Data. Introduction to Educational Research, 19 -38.
Grundy, S., (1987). Chapter 8: Developing Curriculum Praxis. Curriculum: Product or Praxis, 141-160.
Jordan, B. and A. Henderson, (1995). Interaction Analysis. Journal of Learning Sciences, 4, 39 - 103.
Potter, J. and M. Wetherell, (1987). Chapter 2: Unfolding Discourse Analysis. Discourse and Social Psychology, 32-55.
Wilson, K., (1992). Thinking about the Ethics of Field work. Fieldwork in Developing Countries, 179- 199.