Australian Journal of Teacher Education - Issue 10 - Teacher Accountability, Learner Agency and the Crisis of Control

Oct 15, 2026

The article examines assessment-related discourses that shape classroom practices by teachers and learners in the context of initial teacher education in Australia. It focuses on preservice teachers’ required demonstration of assessment capability while promoting student agency and monitoring the impact of their practice under high-stakes accountability measures. It highlights tensions in policy-driven classroom power relations and argues that ecological agency is central to judging assessment capability and graduate effects on student learning.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages18

Reading Time45 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Teacher accountability and student agency discourses

Global assessment policy environment and AfL framework

Australian Journal of Teacher Education | Volume 43 | Issue 10 | Article 2 | | --- | --- | 2018 'Nobody is Watching but Everything I do is Measured': Teacher Accountability, Learner Agency and the Crisis of Control. JoanneDargusch Central Queensland University, [j.dargusch@cqu.edu.au](j.dargusch@cqu.edu.au) Jennifer Charteris University of New England, [jcharte5@une.edu.au](jcharte5@une.edu.au) Recommended Citation Dargusch, J., & Charteris, J. (2018). 'Nobody is Watching but Everything I do is Measured': Teacher Accountability, Learner Agency and the Crisis of Control.. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 43 (10). Retrieved from [https://ro.ecu.edu.au/ajte/vol43/iss10/2](https://ro.ecu.edu.au/ajte/vol43/iss10/2) This Journal Article is posted at Research Online. [https://ro.ecu.edu.au/ajte/vol43/iss10/2](https://ro.ecu.edu.au/ajte/vol43/iss10/2) Australian Journal of Teacher Education ‘Nobody is Watching but Everything I do is Measured’: Teacher Accountability, Learner Agency and the Crisis Of Control. Joanne Dargusch CQ University Jennifer Charteris University of New England Abstract: It is widely acknowledged that there is systemic pressure on teachers to enact assessment practices that raise student achievement. In this article assessment related discourses that influence teacher and student classroom practices are examined in relation to initial teacher education. In Australia, preservice teachers (PSTs) are required to demonstrate assessment capability, promote student agency and monitor their practice impact on student learning whilst working in schooling ecologies that are marked by high stakes accountability measures. Processes that bridge university and in school PST teacher preparation are an important consideration in developing assessment capability. It is argued that there are tensions in the current policy environment associated with distributed classroom power relations that are emblematic of student agency in practice. The socially constituted nature of ecological agency that underpins generative assessment for learning practices is an important consideration for judgement about initial teacher assessment capability and associated graduate impact on student learning. Key Words: Student agency, teacher accountability, initial teacher education, assessment capability Introduction Student agency and teacher accountability are salient assessment discourses in the current Education milieu. These discourses are aligned with the current impetus to ensure that both practitioners and graduates demonstrate assessment capability (AITSL, 2015) . Responding to Booth, Hill and Dixon’s (2014) question, ‘What are the powerful influenceson teacher and student adoption of practices leading to assessment capability?’(p. 153), we address a lacuna in the corpus of assessment literature. In particular, we consider tensions inherent in the drive for both teacher accountability and the promotion of school student agency in initial teacher education (ITE) . More broadly, this article seeks to further contribute to existing literature that critiques the hegemony of neoliberal schooling and ITE practices (Ball, 2015; Lingard, Martino, & Rezai-Rashti, 2013; Sellar, 2014) . In so doing, it builds upon existing scholarship that has challenged the politics of assessment discourses (Thompson & Cook, 2014; Thompson & Mockler, 2016; Tuinamuana, 2011) and frames emerging conceptualisations of agency in ecological terms (Biesta, Priestley, & Robinson, 2017; Charteris & Smardon, 2017) . Vol 43, 10, October 2018 24 Australian Journal of Teacher Education The first discourse, teacher accountability, has emerged from the macro politics of global assessment policies and the associated rise of national testing regimes (Lingard, Martino, & Rezai-Rashti, 2013) . It has been argued, that through policy borrowing and associated dissemination (Lingard, 2010), the ‘global

FAQs

What does the article focus on in initial teacher education?

It examines how assessment-related discourses influence teacher and student classroom practices, especially regarding preservice teachers’ assessment capability and practice impact under accountability pressures.

How are teacher accountability and learner agency connected to the article’s idea of a “crisis of control”?

When teacher accountability and the promotion of learner agency are simultaneously emphasized, the article argues that this creates tensions in shared responsibility and classroom power relations.

Why is ecological agency important for assessing assessment capability?

The article emphasizes that ecological agency—socially constituted and enacted through decision-making—underpins generative assessment for learning and informs judgments about initial teacher assessment capability.

Oct 15, 2026

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