| Formative classroom assessment has been recognized in early childhood educational contexts as a best practice when working with and assessing young children. It involves ongoing daily cycles of systematic inquiry about student learning and thinking, otherwise known as the Assessment Cycle (Dichtelmiller, 2011). However, early childhood teachers report difficulty with interpreting and using data in the development of personalized instruction for students (Akers et al., 2014; Pyle & DeLuca, 2013; Wiliam, 2011b).;The purpose of this case study was to understand formative assessment processes through the perspective of preschool teachers in special education settings. Six preschool teachers across four classrooms (three general education teachers and three special education teachers) from one early childhood center in a large metropolitan city in the Midwest engaged in semi-structured and stimulated-recall interviews to describe their beliefs about learning and assessment, personal experiences with assessment, their classroom contexts, the challenges they faced when assessing students, and their formative assessment processes. Additionally, observations of their instructional and assessment practices, analysis of their assessment artifacts, responses to a self-assessment questionnaire, and descriptive information from a standardized observation measure (Classroom Assessment Scoring System-PreK(TM)) provided further evidence.;Constant comparative analysis was employed to develop individual cases of four classrooms enacting formative assessment processes and to identify themes shared across teacher related to assessment processes and barriers. Results challenged and adjusted the Assessment Cycle by bridging the formative assessment literature with similar bodies of research, resulting in a revised model of formative assessment processes in preschool special education settings. Barriers to effective implementation of formative assessment processes included poor assessment literacy, summative assessment mandates incongruent with the teachers' values, and summative assessment reports limiting communication with families. Implications for further research and application to practice are discussed. |
