Asian Association for Language Assessment

Fairness in assessment has of late come under intense focus, as it is  now viewed as just as important as validity. The aim of this study was  to use two case studies, The Teacher and Adeline Ng Ai Choo, both short  stories by Catherine Lim, set in writing classes in Singapore to  investigate teacher fairness. Both stories are on writing teachers,  whose decisions, which could be considered lacking in fairness, led to  the humiliation of the protagonists, both of whom eventually committed  suicide. Twenty six post graduate students, in an intact group enrolled  on a Professional Development in TESL MA course took part in the study.

After reading both cases, they were asked to respond by way of a  narrative on who was to blame for the deaths of the protagonists in both  stories. After this the researcher conducted focus-group sessions and  interviews so that data from these sources could be used for  triangulation purposes. Qualitative interpretations followed. The  findings revealed that teacher awareness on fairness in writing  assessment was lacking as the subjects seemed to be more aware of what  teachers had to do in the evaluation of writing rather than what human  considerations and fairness should apply in differing contexts. The  researcher believes that disciplinary knowledge deficiencies were the  main reason why awareness of what constitutes fairness was lacking in  these teachers.