A survey for carrying out the qualitative-descriptive student assessment in Tehran's elementary schools

Today, qualitative-descriptive student assessment is one of the educational innovations in the elementary schools in our country. This innovation, in many components, is contrary to current and traditional model of student assessment. Thus, developing the new model of student assessment in the educational system needs preparation and providence. Therefore, the main problem in this research is to see what kind of methods is basically suitable based on the condition of educational system in Tehran's elementary schools for developing “qualitative-descriptive student assessment”.We regarded Rogers and Shoemaker's theory about diffusion of innovation in order to distinguish the contextual factors. Data is collected by interview and questionnaire for describing the current situation. Two groups participated in this study, including 410 school staffs from 36 schools and 11 regions as well as 15 schools that were executives of the qualitative-descriptive student assessment plan. Findings show that there are positive settings about qualitative-descriptive student assessment plan that consist of relative tendency to innovation among people, positive attitude concerning "qualitative-descriptive student assessment", along with having expanded information about "qualitative-descriptive student assessment" amongst teachers. Also, there are negative settings about the plan including positive attitude relative to traditional evaluation. So we selected the demand-based method for developing "qualitative-descriptive student assessment" rest on what resulted from analyzing current situation and theoretical subjects.