Congratulations to the New PhD Irena Raudienė on the successful defence of her doctoral thesis

Congratulations to the new PhD  Irena Raudienė on successfully defending her doctoral dissertation “Assessment Culture for Learning: a Critical Ethnographic Study of One School” (Education Sciences  (S 007), scientific supervisor – prof. dr. Natalija Mažeikienė, and  acquiring  the degree of PhD of Social Sciences in the field of Education Sciences).
The dissertation is available at Vytautas Magnus University and Lithuanian National M. Mažvydas Library.
The dissertation is available at 11 Studentų St., Akademy, Kaunas district, Lithuania.
The dissertation aims to analyse the situation of achievement assessment in Lithuanian general education schools. According to the researchers’ insights, assessment in schools is often perceived as a way to determine the value of students’ performance in terms of grades or marks, but it does not exploit the potential of assessment to support students’ learning, does not always reflect students’ individual aptitudes and needs, and does not always measure students according to one standard. The dissertation seeks to substantiate the assumption that assessment practices are not only dependent on the expertise of the individual teacher, but are also an expression of the school culture, which is shaped by the daily interactions of community members.

Drawing on the most significant learning theories of the twentieth century, as well as critical and cultural theories, the paper analyses assessment as a pedagogical practice and as an element of school culture and educational policy. The empirical research was guided by Carspecken’s (1996) critical ethnographic methodology, which draws on critical theory, anthropology, pragmatism, phenomenology, and Habermas’s theories of communicative action. The critical ethnographic research, which has been conducted over a period of more than a year, reveals that the practice of assessment in schools depends on teachers’ beliefs about the meaning of assessment, which are shaped by interactions between students and teachers and, as the research reveals, are influenced by the competitive pressures on the school to conform to the requirements of a ‘good’ school dictated by neo-liberal ideology.

Dissertation Defence Council:

Chair – prof. dr. Sigitas Daukilas (Vytautas Magnus University, Academy of Education, Social Sciences, Education S 007).
associate prof. Dr. Ilona Tandzegolskienė-Bielaglovė (Vytautas Magnus University Academy of Education, Social Sciences, Education, S 007),
prof. dr. Lilija Duoblienė (Vilnius University, Social Sciences, Education, S 007),
Prof. dr. Liudmila Rupšienė (Klaipėda University, Social Sciences, Dducology S 007),
Prof. dr. Erno Lehtinen (Vytautas Magnus University, Academy of Education, Social Sciences, Educational Studies S 007, University of Turku).