EFL Teachers’ Conceptualisation of Fairness in Online Classroom Assessment of Speaking and Listening Skills: A Call for Rubric-Based Assessment and Real-world Scenarios

To unravel the challenges and possibilities of online classroom assessment in a developing country, the present study sought to delve into Iranian language teachers’ conceptualization of assessment fairness of the productive skills of speaking and writing. Our participants consisted of 20 English language teachers, who were invited to share their conceptions through interviews. A hybrid thematic approach was used to analyze the data, in light of the re-conceptualisation of classroom assessment fairness proposed by Rasooli et al. (2018), whereby classroom fairness is revisited in the intersection of teaching, learning, interaction, and assessment. Findings revealed that most of the teachers talked about a quest for equality through rubric-based assessment and referred to the importance of authentic assessment as a contextually relevant and sensitive assessment, which represents the real-world scenario and engages learners in the process of assessment. Indeed, the call for authenticity in online assessment shows the need for the consideration of the element of context in addition to the four elements mentioned above. Furthermore, the deliberate ignorance of equity due to the challenges of online assessment indicates important roles educational systems can play in assisting teachers in the process of assessment, which requires the transformation of cultural identity of educational systems