Prisoner’s dilemma: An analysis of parents’ perceptions of the Hong Kong territory-wide systematic assessment

This research was originated from a recent public rebel against the Territory-wide Systematic Assessment (TSA) in Hong Kong. TSA was introduced by the Hong Kong government as an accountability measure of school effectiveness; it assesses student achievement in Chinese, English and Mathematics at the end of Key stages 1-3. TSA, however, has long been perceived negatively by teachers as bringing about extra workload and pressure and promoting teaching to the test. This tension reached a climax in late 2015 when anti-TSA campaigns organized by parents attracted massive media exposure.
Within language assessment, there is little research conducted focusing on parents, who is a key stakeholder of school assessment. Parents’ views towards school assessment were seldom heard or documented. This research investigated parents’ perceptions towards school assessment and TSA. Prisoner’s dilemma was adopted as an analytical lens to understand how individuals’ rational choices made in self-interest may end up as a bad decision for the group and the conflicts between individual and group rationality. Copyright © 2019 Assessing World Languages Conference.