Professional autonomy vs. assessment criteria: teacher agency in the midst of assessment reform

In Finland, there are no high-stakes tests in comprehensive education, but teachers assign students’ final grades. A recent reform introduced a set of assessment criteria to make grades more comparable across Finland. Based on interviews with 66 lower secondary school teachers, the present study examines how Finnish teachers used their agency in the face of this assessment reform. Understanding teacher agency is of great importance, as it plays a key role in mediating teachers’ public power through final assessment. Using typology analysis, we constructed five teacher types, each reflecting a particular type of agency: the enthusiast, the willing executor, the obedient critic, the immune and the rebel. The nature of teachers’ involvement in the reform varied between the types. The differences in teachers’ agency highlight the importance of understanding different types of teacher agency when implementing assessment reforms and providing appropriate support for all types of teachers.