Perspectives of English Language Teachers on Fairness and Justice in Assessing Writing

Abstract

Neglect of issues in fairness and justice in writing assessment has far-reaching consequences on teachers and learners, giving way to consider the role of teacher training courses, professional development, and psychological state in scoring students’ writings. The current qualitative study investigated Malaysian and Chinese English language teachers’ perspectives of justice and fairness in assessing writing in response to different tasks. The participants were selected purposively. Multiple methods were followed to collect the data. The participants performed two tasks, which involved them in (i) individually reading two short stories, one related to fairness and the other to justice according to Kunnan’s (2014) definition of the terms, (ii) writing their reflections about each task individually, and (iii) participating in group interviews. The findings indicated that participants were more confident about what constitutes justice than fairness. The participants’ educational backgrounds and upbringing revealed differences between the Chinese and Malaysian participants. The study has pedagogical and methodological implications.