Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice

ISSN: 0969-594X (Print) 1465-329X (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/caie20

Assessment and the co-regulation of learning in

the classroom

Linda Allal

To cite this article: Linda Allal (2019): Assessment and the co-regulation of learning
in the classroom, Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, DOI:
10.1080/0969594X.2019.1609411

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ASSESSMENT IN EDUCATION: PRINCIPLES, POLICY & PRACTICE
https://doi.org/10.1080/0969594X.2019.1609411

Assessment and the co-regulation of learning in the

classroom
Linda Allal
Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

This paper examines the processes of regulation of student learn- Received 14 May 2018
ing that are associated with formative assessment in the class- Accepted 11 April 2019
room. It discusses the concept of co-regulation and presents KEYWORDS
a model of co-regulation developed in a situated perspective on Co-regulation of learning;
classroom learning. This model conceptualises co-regulated learn- formative assessment; peer
ing as resulting from the joint influence of student self-regulation assessment; self-assessment;
and of sources of regulation in the learning environment: namely, teacher–student interaction
the structure of the teaching/learning situation, the teacher’s
interventions and interactions with students, the interactions
between students, and the tools used for instruction and for
assessment. Examples of research showing how co-regulation
functions are discussed, in particular students’ use of tools for self-
assessment and peer assessment, and the role of teacher–student
interactions that encourage active student participation in forma-
tive assessment.

All practices of classroom assessment reflect, at least implicitly, a theory of learning that
orients the way assessment is carried out and the meaning attributed to assessment by
both teachers and students. Moreover, all theories of learning propose a mechanism of
regulation of the learner’s behaviour and thought processes as he or she progresses, or
fails to progress, towards a learning goal. Well-known mechanisms of regulation
include reinforcement in behaviourist theory, equilibration in Piaget’s constructivism,
feedback devices in cognitive models, and social mediation in sociocultural and social
constructivist approaches (Allal, 2010). Although there are important differences among
these theories, they all consider processes of regulation to be essential for learning.
A generic definition of these processes can be formulated as follows: ‘Regulation
involves four main processes: goal setting, monitoring progress towards the goal,
interpretation of feedback derived from monitoring, and adjustment of goal-directed
actions and/or of the definition of the goal itself’ (Allal, 2010, p. 349). The four
processes are cyclical and do not unfold in a strictly linear sequence. For example,
the interpretation of feedback may lead to continued monitoring or to reflection about
the goal, rather than directly to adjustment of actions. In classroom settings, the four
processes of regulation are an integral part of the teaching/learning activities in which
the teacher and the students engage.

CONTACT Linda Allal linda.allal@unige.ch Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, University of Geneva,
FPSE, 12 Pre des Esserts, Chene Bougeries, Geneva 1224, Switzerland
© 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 L. ALLAL

This paper includes three sections, followed by some concluding remarks. The first
section examines the concept of regulation as it emerged in both the French-language
and English-language literature on formative assessment in the classroom. The second
section discusses current conceptions of the ‘co-regulation’ of student learning and
presents a model of co-regulation developed in a situated perspective on teaching,
learning, and assessment in the classroom. The third section discusses examples of
research that highlight the contribution of formative assessment to the co-regulation of
student learning. Although processes of co-regulation are present in all contexts of
education, the focus of this paper is on primary and secondary school classrooms.

Regulation as the function of formative classroom assessment

Classroom assessment can be defined as the activities, both formal and informal, that are
orchestrated by teachers in order to assess the learning of the students under their
pedagogical responsibility and to promote students’ involvement in assessment of their
own learning (via self-assessment and peer assessment). The time frame of classroom
assessment allows inferences with varying degrees of long-term reliability about student
learning. A teacher’s observations during a lesson may justify the inference that a student
‘now understands and applies systematically a calculation procedure’; subsequent results
on an end-of-term test may confirm or invalidate the initial inference about student
learning. The same would be true for student self-assessment or peer assessment.
Although classroom assessment may not allow valid inferences about the long-term
stability of student learning into adulthood, it is nevertheless an essential source of
evidence for continuous (week-by-week, year-by-year, etc.) educational decisions.
The now classical distinction between formative and summative assessment of
student learning in the classroom was introduced by Bloom (1968, Bloom, Hastings,
& Madaus, 1971) in the context of his model of mastery learning. In the French-
language research community, an influential paper by Cardinet (1977) discussed
Bloom’s contribution and proposed that the function of formative assessment be
conceptualised as the regulation of student learning through guidance integrated at
each step of instructional activities. Cardinet compared formative assessment’s function
of regulation to that of a cybernetic system designed to ensure continuous monitoring
and adjustments in order to guide a space vehicle to its destination. As shown in
reviews of the publications by French-language researchers working in Belgium,
Canada, France, and Switzerland (Allal & Mottier Lopez, 2005; Perrenoud, 1998), the
concept of regulation became the central focus of their investigations of classroom
assessment. In the English-language research community, the conceptualisation of
classroom assessment in terms of the regulation of learning emerged more gradually
and has tended to emphasise the role of formative assessment in the development of
self-regulated learning. A review by Panadero, Andrade, and Brookhart (2018) has
traced the sources and successive phases of this development.
Although positive support for student learning is the specific aim of formative
assessment, the links that teachers establish between their formative and summative
assessment practices also contribute to the regulation of student learning. Various cases
of synergy between formative and summative assessment have been discussed by
Laveault and Allal (2016). Classroom research has shown, for example, that some
 ASSESSMENT IN EDUCATION: PRINCIPLES, POLICY & PRACTICE 3

teachers make formative use of data collected for a summative purpose (Black,
Harrison, Lee, Marshall, & Wiliam, 2003) and that some students use summative
indicators (grades) to regulate their own learning (Brookhart, 2001). The present
paper adopts an extensive view of formative assessment that includes its links with
summative assessments designed to enhance student learning. It needs to be recognised,
however, that summative assessment practices do not always foster student learning and
may even be detrimental to student learning.

Formative assessment and theories of learning

Following on Cardinet’s (1977) paper, Allal (1979) presented a systematic comparison
between a conception of formative assessment based on Bloom’s neo-behaviourist model of
mastery learning and an approach to formative assessment based on a cognitive and
constructivist conception of learning, as suggested by Bruner’s (1966) theory of instruction
and by Piaget’s (1975) concept of equilibration. She argued that, in contrast with Bloom’s
focus on remediation (i.e., the use of ‘correctives’ to eliminate errors and assure mastery of
learning objectives), a cognitive and constructivist approach implies other ways of con-
ducting formative assessment, with priority being given to observation and interaction with
students as they carry out tasks in order to understand their cognitive representations and
their thinking processes. She further proposed that the regulation of learning in the class-
room be aimed at creating a ‘décalage optimal’ (optimal discrepancy1) between the require-
ments of the learning task and the knowledge and skills that the learner already possesses
(Allal, 1979, p. 138). If the discrepancy is too big, the learner will be unable to enter into the
task. If, on the other hand, the discrepancy is very small, as in behaviourist learning
sequences where the learner immediately succeeds with the next step, then the process of
equilibration and cognitive restructuring – necessary for deep learning – will likely fail to
occur. The notion of an optimal décalage implies a synergistic tension between a task that
provokes the learner’s reflection and a learner who actively manipulates the task and its
parameters.
In English-language publications on formative assessment, feedback has long been
considered to be the defining feature of formative assessment (Sadler, 1989). As stated by
Hattie and Timperley (2007), a major aim of feedback from assessment or other sources is
to identify the ‘gap’ between the learner’s current knowledge and the learning targets of
the curriculum and then ‘to provide remediation in the form of alternative or other steps’
that will reduce or close the gap (p. 102). The goal of ‘closing the gap’ is advocated in
numerous publications on formative assessment. Torrance (2012) and Dann (2014) have
presented well-argued criticisms of the mechanistic and simplistic aspect of this expres-
sion. A ‘gap’ suggests a void to be filled or closed by an outside agent. In contrast, the
creation of an optimal décalage, as proposed in the French-language literature, depends
not only on external sources of regulation (teacher interventions, curricular materials,
assessment tools), but also on the activity of the learner, who asks questions, encounters
challenges, exchanges with others, compares different ways of approaching a problem,
restructures or reformulates existing concepts, and – perhaps most importantly – reflects
on his or her identify as a learner.
Cognitive and constructivist theories of learning became increasingly prominent in
English-language publications as of the late 1970s (e.g., Magoon, 1977), but – as
4 L. ALLAL

Shepard (2000) observed – work on assessment continued to be influenced primarily by

behaviourist or neo-behviourist learning theories and by models of scientific measure-
ment. Drawing on a wide range of sources, Shepard described the emergence of
a transformed paradigm of classroom assessment based on cognitive and constructivist
learning theories and on a renewed vision of the curriculum. She also highlighted the
influence of Vygotsky (1978) in the development of social constructivist views of
learning and assessment. Gipps (1999), referring to the work of Vygotsky and to
theories of situated cognition and learning (Cobb & Bowers, 1999; Lave & Wenger,
1991), presented a detailed analysis of the sociocultural dimensions that are present in
system level assessment and in the dynamics of assessment in the classroom. James
(2008) also analysed the implications of sociocultural and situated theories of learning
for teaching and assessment in classroom settings. The idea that classroom assessment
concerns not only the regulation of learning but also the formation of students’ identity
as learners and as participants in a learning community has been developed in
a number of papers, among which Dann’s (2014) discussion of ‘assessment as learning’
with reference to sociocultural theory and CHAT (Cultural Historical Activity Theory),
and Fletcher’s (2018) conceptualisation of classroom assessment practices from the
perspective of Bandura’s (1986) social cognitive theory of learning.
In an article focused more specifically on the relationship between assessment and
Vygotsky’s (1978) concept of the zone of proximal development (ZPD), Allal and
Pelgrims Ducrey (2000) contrasted two assessment perspectives based on interpreta-
tions of different proposals in Vygotsky’s writings. In the area of ‘dynamic assessment’
(Lidz, 1987), assessment of the learner’s ZPD is seen as a way of measuring learning
potential, through a standardised sequence of prompts, in clinical and special education
settings. In general classroom settings, formative assessment aimed at interactive
regulation is conceptualised as scaffolding of ongoing learning in the learner’s ZPD.
In this second situation, assessment is not a predetermined standardised procedure;
rather it is created by the interaction between learner and teacher (or more advanced
peer) and is thus jointly determined by the knowledge and skills deployed by both
participants in the situation. Teachers (or other tutors) obviously have a larger reper-
toire of knowledge and skills than their students and they are generally the initiators of
assessment in the learner’s ZPD, but what actually happens in the interaction depends
ultimately on how the learner participates in the interaction and on his or her inter-
pretation of the feedback and guidance provided by the teacher or a peer.

Contingencies of regulation in formative assessment

Black and Wiliam (2009) have stated that formative assessment involves ‘the creation
of, and capitalisation upon, “moments of contingency” in instruction for the purpose of
the regulation of learning processes’ (p. 10). They further pointed out that contingen-
cies can be synchronous (e.g., a teacher makes real-time adjustments during a lesson) or
asynchronous (e.g., a teacher uses information from student homework to plan a new
lesson). Allal (1988) has described three modalities of regulation (retroactive, proactive,
interactive) associated with formative assessment that differ in terms of the temporality
of their contingencies. Retroactive regulation (remediation in the classic mastery learn-
ing model) generally implies asynchronous contingency. The results of a formative
 ASSESSMENT IN EDUCATION: PRINCIPLES, POLICY & PRACTICE 5

assessment are used to identify the objectives a student did not master during a prior
phase of instruction; activities (‘correctives’) are then proposed that allow the student to
return to these objectives and overcome difficulties initially encountered. Proactive
regulation also entails asynchronous contiguity, but it is forward looking rather than
backward looking. It occurs when information from assessment is used to plan and
prepare new instructional activities, including enrichment and consolidation of learn-
ing, according to the needs and interests of all students, rather than focusing on the
remediation of learning difficulties. For example, a teacher might use information from
a formative assessment to plan small group work on a new topic that would be better
adapted to student needs than the way the work was organised for the previous topic.
This could entail modification of the composition of the groups in order to avoid
problems observed in the previous activity, or differentiation of the topics assigned to
the groups in order to take into account interests expressed by the students.
The third modality of regulation associated with formative assessment described by
Allal (1988) is interactive regulation based on the interactions of the student with the
teacher, with peers, and with instructional materials and assessment tools, during
ongoing instructional activities. It entails synchronous contingencies between the sub-
processes of regulation (monitoring, feedback, adaptation). Examples include: teacher–
student dialogues that occur as the teacher observes students working on a task and asks
questions to help them move forward in their understanding of the task; students using
self-assessment or peer assessment tools to revise texts they are working on; learning
environments that use information technology to facilitate students’ engagement in the
monitoring and adjustment of their progression in a task domain. Interactive regulation
highlights learner agency in the use of resources (teacher, peers, instructional materials,
assessment tools) that support the progression of learning. The teacher’s role is never-
theless important because it is generally the teacher who sets up the conditions that favour
or inhibit student participation in interactive regulation. The concept of interactive
regulation is consonant with the definition of assessment for learning proposed by an
international network of researchers at a conference in New Zealand (Klenowski, 2009):
‘Assessment for learning is part of everyday practice by students, teachers and peers that
seeks, reflects upon and responds to information from dialogue, demonstration and
observation in ways that enhance ongoing learning’ (p. 264).
Assessment that is embedded in classroom activities and allows interactive regulation of
student learning has an immense advantage in that it fosters ongoing regulation while the
student is engaged in a learning activity. However, in ordinary classroom conditions (a
single teacher for 20–30 students, or more), it is rarely possible to assure optimal interactive
regulation for every student engaged in each learning task. Even in a one-on-one assess-
ment conversation (e.g., a teacher–student conference about the student’s writing portfo-
lio), it is not easy to ensure high-quality interactive regulation. Perrenoud (1998) analysed
very cogently the factors that can interfere with interactive regulation. Teachers often lack
conceptual models of the learning domain that could guide their interventions; classroom
management is a complex activity with a large part of uncertainty and misunderstanding
between the actors; students – for various reasons – may be unable or unwilling to engage in
interactive regulation. Moreover, a substantial part of classroom teaching takes place in the
form of collective lessons and as Perrenoud (1998) noted: ‘Part of the feedback given to
pupils in class is like so many bottles thrown to the sea. No one can be sure that the message
6 L. ALLAL

they contain will one day find a receiver’ (p. 87). Because of the limits of interactive
regulation, formative assessment oriented towards retroactive and proactive regulation
are necessary components of classroom assessment. Formative tests or tasks at the end of
an instructional unit can allow the teacher to pick up learning difficulties that fell through
the net of interactive regulation and then put in place appropriate forms of remediation.
Proactive regulation can make use of information from one activity to design a new activity
with some built-in features of anticipatory regulation. In summary, to be effective, for-
mative assessment requires the coordination of interactive, retroactive, and proactive
modalities of regulation.

Co-regulation of learning and assessment

A distinction has often been made between regulation that is internal or external to the
learner. In particular, a seminal paper by Ann Brown (1987) discussed the differences
between ‘self-regulation’ in a Piagetian perspective and ‘other-regulation’ in
a Vygotskian framework More recently, the idea of co-regulation has emerged as
a possible way of bridging the internal–external distinction. There are, however, several
different ways of conceptualising the co-regulation of student learning.

Conceptions of co-regulation
The field of research on self-regulated learning (SRL) has, as its primary goal, the
investigation of the processes of regulation inherent to the learner’s thought processes,
motivations, and behaviours. SRL researchers have nevertheless shown increasing
interest in the role of social and contextual factors in the formation and enactment of
SRL processes (e.g., Boekaerts, 2002; Zimmerman, 1989). A special journal issue on the
social aspects of self-regulated learning (edited by Hadwin & Järvelä, 2011) provided
a forum for the authors to discuss ways of enlarging or redefining the field so as to
encompass both the self and the social processes involved in regulating learning. The
article by Hadwin and Oshige (2011) presented a well-documented analysis that
differentiated three categories of regulation of student learning:

● self-regulation, which entails active monitoring and regulating of one’s own

learning;
● co-regulation, which is considered as a transitional process in the learner’s appro-
priation of self-regulation strategies through interaction with a more capable other
(teacher, more advanced peer);
● socially shared regulation, which refers to collective, co-constructed regulation by
multiple participants (of equivalent status) who assure the progression of their
shared activity.

The above definition of co-regulation is coherent with the approach developed by

McCaslin and Hickey (2001) in a Vygotskian perspective; it implies that scaffolding
in the learner’s zone of proximal development leads to appropriation of strategies
that are internalised as self-regulation strategies. In contrast, Volet, Vaurus, and
Salonen (2009) have used the expression co-regulation in a broader sense for any
 ASSESSMENT IN EDUCATION: PRINCIPLES, POLICY & PRACTICE 7

form of socially mediated regulation, whether with a more capable other or with
peers of equivalent status. They proposed to treat ‘self- and coregulatory mechanisms
as interdependent, fundamental adaptive mechanisms of any self-organizing system’
(p. 215). This definition maintains the distinction between self- and co-regulatory
mechanisms but emphasises their interdependence and reciprocal influence. In an
article linking classroom assessment and the co-regulation of student learning,
Andrade and Brookhart (2019) adhere to the idea of interdependence between
student self-regulation and co-regulation, which they characterise as ‘other regula-
tion’ resulting from teachers’ actions, other students, instructional materials, and
assessment practices.
The perspective of situated cognition and learning suggests a conception of co-
regulation that differs from the previous ones. Theories of situated cognition and
learning have diverse disciplinary foundations (Kirshner & Whitson, 1997), but share
the basic postulate that the social and individual planes of human experience are
mutually constitutive. Learning is seen as a process of enculturation through participa-
tion in a community of practice, and as a cognitive activity that is distributed across the
social and material aspects of the learning environment (Brown, Collins, & Duguid,
1989).
The model of co-regulation of student learning proposed by Allal (2007) draws
largely on the situated perspective developed by Cobb and co-workers (Cobb &
Bowers, 1999; Cobb, Gravemeijer, Yackel, McClain, & Whitenack, 1997). Their research
maintains the crucial postulate of interdependence between the individual and social
planes but nevertheless attempts to circumscribe attributes of each plane and investigate
them empirically. As stated by Cobb et al. (1997), learning is ‘both a process of active
individual construction and a process of enculturation’ (p. 152). One important concept
developed by Cobb et al. is that meaning – as elaborated in classroom interactions – is
never identical in the minds of all actors. The interactions between teacher and
students, particularly during whole-class discussions, lead to the emergence of practices,
norms, and understandings that are ‘taken-as-shared’ (p. 157): that is, they function ‘as
if’ they are shared and thereby allow learning activities to move forward with contribu-
tions by all actors.
In the model formulated by Allal (2007, 2016), to be presented in the next section,
co-regulation is not conceptualised as one category or mechanism of regulation among
others, as is the case in the formulations of Hadwin and Oshige (2011), Volet et al.
(2009), and Andrade and Brookhart (2019), but rather as an overarching construct that
integrates the social and the individual planes of regulation in classroom settings. More
specifically, co-regulation is defined as the joint influence on student learning of the
learner’s processes of self-regulation and of the sources of regulation in the learning
environment: namely, the structure of the teaching/learning situation; the teacher’s
interventions and interactions with students; the interactions between students; the
tools (materials, artefacts, instruments) used for instruction and for assessment.

A model of co-regulation and its relation to formative assessment

In the model proposed by Allal (2007), shown in Figure 1, the sources of regulation
present in the learning environment are nested in a hierarchical manner and the
8 L. ALLAL

Regulations linked to the structure of the teaching/learning tools

situation

Regulations linked to the teacher s interventions and interactions tools

with students

Regulations linked to peer interaction

tools

Processes of
tools
self-regulation
(cognitive, metacognitive,
motivational...)

Figure 1. Co-regulation of student learning in classroom settings.

(Source: Allal (2007), reproduced with permission from De Boeck Supérieur S.A., translated by author)

processes of self-regulation are situated at the core of the model. The model identifies
the three sources of regulation present in any teaching/learning situation in the
classroom:

● the structure of the teaching/learning situation, including the learning goals, activ-
ities, and materials provided by the curriculum, the temporal and spatial organisa-
tion of the activities, the sequencing and social structure of the activities (whole
class, small group, individual);
● the teacher’s interventions and interactions with students, including adjustments the
teacher introduces as the situation unfolds, and the teacher’s interactions with the
entire class, with small groups, and with individual students;
● the interactions between students, including their discussions during collaborative
learning activities, or in peer tutoring, as well as their frequent informal exchanges.

The nested structure of these sources of regulation needs to be underlined. Interactions

(between teacher and students, between students) take place within the structure of
a teaching/learning situation defined by the curriculum and/or by the teacher prior to
the enactment of the situation. Moreover, interactions between students take place
within a framework formulated and regulated by the teacher. In this respect, the
model differs from other approaches that focus on the interactions between actors
(students, peers, teachers) without consideration of the sources of regulation embedded
in the structure of the teaching/learning situation. The interactions between actors are
nevertheless critical for the elaboration of the taken-as-shared meaning of the different
components of the situation. For example, learning goals, as specified by the curriculum
and/or the teacher, undergo interpretation, explicitation, or re-formulation during
classroom interactions.
At the core of the nested structure of the model are the processes of self-regulation
(cognitive, metacognitive, motivational, behavioural) which occur as each learner
 ASSESSMENT IN EDUCATION: PRINCIPLES, POLICY & PRACTICE 9

participates in the teaching/learning situation. These processes have been the object of
extensive theoretical and empirical work by SRL researchers.
As shown in Figure 1, tools are a source of regulation present at each level of the
model. Tools include instructional materials, cultural artefacts (e.g., dictionary), tech-
nological environments, as well as assessment procedures and instruments. Assessment
tools have several important functions in the co-regulation of learning.

(1) Tools assure linkages between the different levels of regulation. For example, the
teacher may select an assessment rubric (specifying learning goals) provided by
the curriculum materials and then conduct a whole-class discussion during
which more specific success criteria are defined and illustrated; the resulting
extended rubric may then be used by students both for peer assessment and self-
assessment.
(2) Tools can amplify the effects of interactive co-regulation by making the goals
more explicit and the monitoring of progress more systematic than would be the
case in informal interactions without assessment tools.
(3) Tools often allow recording of traces of assessment that can be used for deferred
regulation. For example, when a group of students assesses its collaborative
writing activity using a checklist, this information can be subsequently used by
the teacher to prepare a new classroom activity designed to help students over-
come previous difficulties.

There are two major implications of the above model for formative assessment in the
classroom (Allal, 2016). The first is that formative assessment involves regulations
operating – simultaneously or successively – at several different levels. For example,
self-assessment, which is a key formative practice aimed at fostering self-regulation, is
not an encapsulated event. Self-assessment is influenced by teacher interventions and by
the tools teachers provide. It is also influenced by the behaviour of other students in the
classroom even when there is no direct peer interaction: for example, a student’s
perseverance in filling out a self-assessment rubric may be influenced by observation
of other students’ investment in the task.
A second implication concerns the taken-as-shared meaning of assessment as it
emerges in the classroom culture. The meaning attributed to formative assessment
results from the transactions occurring at all the levels in the co-regulation model.
How students understand a formative assessment event, and what they feel about it,
depends on how the teacher has structured the situation. For example, if no time has
been planned for carrying out adjustments or revisions, there may be little incentive for
the students to process feedback from the assessment. The interactions between stu-
dents in the context of peer assessment can be positive and stimulate reflection, but they
can sometimes be demotivating and inhibit students’ sustained engagement in improv-
ing or revising their work. The tools used for formative assessment can help clarify and
exemplify success criteria and thus support learning, but if not well designed, they can
become an ‘extra burden’ that discourages the learner.
The model presented in Figure 1 differs from other approaches to co-regulation in
two respects. Many researchers working in the field of self-regulated learning
recognise the social dimensions of learning and the importance of their role, but
10 L. ALLAL

nevertheless, consider that the ultimate goal of education is to help students become
autonomous self-regulated learners. Co-regulation, socially shared or socially mediated
regulation is seen as means towards this goal. In the situated perspective underlying the
Allal model in Figure 1, all learning in the classroom is considered to be co-regulated. In
other words, it is claimed that self-regulated learning does not exist as an independent
entity. Even when students are working alone on a task, actively monitoring their own
progress, using strategies to orient and adjust their progression, they are doing so in
a context and with tools that are social and cultural constructions. In this perspective,
co-regulation is not a transitory process on the way to autonomous self-regulation. At
a given point in time, learners – interacting with teachers and/or peers – do
internalise specific strategies of regulation that become part of their repertoire of self-
regulation. For example, they may learn a new strategy for revising their essays (e.g.,
a technique for checking grammatical agreements). But the continued use of the
strategy is invariably incorporated into new classroom writing activities where con-
textual factors – including assessment procedures and tools that support use of the
strategy – will influence activation of the strategy and its extension to new situations.
Thus, in classroom settings, the learner never moves out of the process of co-regulation
into a state of fully autonomous self-regulation. Students do not become self-regulated
learners, rather they learn to participate in increasingly complex and diversified forms
of co-regulation.
The preceding arguments do not, however, diminish the importance of processes of
student self-regulation situated at the core of the model. Sources of regulation in the
learning environment are simply that: sources characterised by affordances2 that can
enhance or inhibit self-regulation but that do not ensure regulation of learning. In this
respect, what Ann Brown called ‘other regulation’ (teacher intervention, peer interac-
tion, assessment, etc.) has an effect only if the affordances are acted upon by the self-
regulation system of the learner. Let us take as an example a situation where the teacher
calls various students to the blackboard and asks each one to present his or her solution
to a mathematics problem. Even if the teacher’s comments and questions provide high-
quality feedback focused on the student’s reasoning processes, this will not necessarily
ensure that the student fully understands the teacher’s feedback and will be able to
adjust his or her thinking about the problem. An adjustment leading to progress in
conceptual understanding may occur subsequently in various circumstances: for exam-
ple, when the student observes the teacher’s feedback to another student, or when the
student reflects about the differences between several solutions written on the black-
board. How and when the affordances of a contextual source of regulation become
operant is dependent on learner agency.
To summarise: Saying that student learning in the classroom is co-regulated, rather
than self-regulated, does not mean that processes of self-regulation do not exist; rather
it situates these processes, in conjunction with contextual sources of regulation, within
a more encompassing framework of co-regulation, as presented in Figure 1.
Two limitations of the model in Figure 1 need to be mentioned. The first is that it
considers student self-regulation but not the self-regulatory processes in which teachers
engage as they intervene and interact with students. The model of co-regulation
proposed by Panadero, Broadbent, Boud, and Lodge (2018) follows the Allal (2016)
definition of co-regulation but adds specification of the role of evaluative judgements
 ASSESSMENT IN EDUCATION: PRINCIPLES, POLICY & PRACTICE 11

and self-regulatory actions undertaken by both the assessor (teacher, peer) and the
assessee during interactive formative assessment. A second limitation of the model in
Figure 1 is the focus on processes of co-regulation within the classroom setting. To
understand these processes more fully, it would be necessary to take into consideration
the influence of phenomena outside the classroom. In the area of assessment, this would
include the school’s assessment culture; the assessment policies of the school system
and the resources allocated to professional development in the area of assessment; the
beliefs and traditions regarding assessment in the local and national contexts. Further
theoretical and empirical work is therefore needed to situate co-regulation in the
classroom within the sources of regulation in the school, the education system, and
the surrounding culture.

Research on assessment and co-regulation of learning

This section presents some key findings from research showing how formative assess-
ment can contribute to the co-regulation of learning in primary and secondary school
classrooms.

Self-assessment and peer assessment tools

Research on self- and peer assessment (see reviews by Panadero, Jonsson, & Botella,
2017; Panadero, Jonsson, & Strijbos, 2016) has been conducted primarily in the context
of higher education, but a number of studies have examined these practices in primary
or secondary school contexts. Andrade, Du, and Wang (2008) obtained a positive effect
on the essay writing of students in grades 3 and 4 by providing them with a model
paper used to generate criteria in a class discussion and a rubric incorporating the
criteria which the students used as a tool for self-assessment of their initial drafts which
they then revised. These results were replicated in a study with students in grades 5, 6
and 7 (Andrade, Du, & Mycek, 2010). In research carried out by Meusen-Beekman,
Joosten-Ten Brinke, and Boshuizen (2016), the effect of formative assessment on the
self-regulation of student writing was investigated in grade 6 classrooms over a period
of 27 weeks. Three conditions were compared. In the control condition, the teacher
corrected the students’ essays and gave them back to their authors, but the students did
not revise their work. In the other two conditions, the teacher led whole-class discus-
sions to construct interactively, with the students, checklists and rubrics either for self-
assessment (in one condition) or for peer assessment (in the other condition). The
results showed that both self- and peer assessment had a significant impact on student
self-regulation of writing, but that there were no significant differences between these
conditions which both entail active student participation in formative assessment.
Several studies on the effects of assessment tools have been conducted with second-
ary school students (ages 15–16). Panadero, Alonso Tapia, and Huertas (2012) analysed
the effects of two assessment tools – rubrics and scripts (step-by-step questions showing
how to approach a task) – on students’ self-regulation of learning when carrying out
a geography task (analysis of landscapes). The results showed that both tools had
a positive effect on self-regulation during the execution of the task and that the effect
of scripts was greater. In an experiment conducted by Kostons, van Gog, and Paas
12 L. ALLAL

(2012), students’ self-regulation in problem-solving was enhanced by training with

video models and by practice focused on self-assessment and task selection. As com-
pared to paper-and-pencil rubrics and scripts, video models constituted a more
dynamic tool that made explicit (visible) both relevant criteria and effective strategies
for solving problems and selecting new tasks.
Although the results of the above investigations were framed in terms of self-
regulated learning, it can be argued that student learning in these situations was in
fact co-regulated: by the tool (which specifies criteria, guidelines, strategies, etc.) and by
the student user of the tool (who appropriates, partially or fully, the information
provided by the tool as a basis for self-regulation or for providing feedback to
a peer). It should be noted, moreover, that in classroom settings (e.g., studies by
Andrade et al. and by Meusen-Beekman et al.), teachers’ interactions with the students
in their classrooms regulate the way the tools are structured (content, criteria, format)
and the way students use them. Since self-assessment and peer assessment tools do not
always have a positive effect on learning, it is important to provide teachers with
guidelines for the construction of effective tools and for coaching students in their
use (Panadero et al., 2016).

Formative assessment embodied in teacher–student interaction

When interacting with an individual student, a teacher can attempt to provide scaffold-
ing that is closely adapted to what the student says and does and thus promote co-
regulation situated in the student’s zone of proximal development. In a Vygotskian
perspective, scaffolding is effective if the teacher appropriates elements of the learner’s
responses and, in parallel, the learner advances by appropriating elements of the
teacher’s interventions. This dual appropriation is highlighted in the investigation by
Torrance and Pryor (1998) of informal formative assessment events during teacher–
student interactions in classrooms with students aged 4–7 years. Their analysis, based
primarily on excerpts of one-on-one and small group interactions, showed that the
process of appropriation can serve a formative purpose by promoting student engage-
ment and progress towards a learning goal, but that in some cases it is used by the
teacher for purposes of social control (i.e., managing the advancement of an activity or
ensuring a student’s compliance with classroom rules.). Heritage (2016) also analysed
examples of formative assessment in one-on-one interactions between teachers and
students in grade 3 and grade 5 classrooms. Her analysis focused on the ways in which
the teacher’s questioning was contingent on the nature of the student’s responses and,
at the same time, fostered progression of the student’s reasoning and reflection about
the task at hand. She presented evidence that teacher–student dialogues are more likely
to contribute to co-regulation of student learning when they are embedded in a set of
routines and expectations that are shared (or taken-as-shared) by the teacher and the
students.
The Vygotskian concepts of scaffolding and co-regulation in the learner’s zone of
proximal development are relevant when teachers interact with individual students or
small groups, either informally (e.g., when the teacher moves around the classroom
observing students at work) or in more formal settings (e.g., planned teacher–student
conferences). Whole-class lessons remain nevertheless the most frequent format of
 ASSESSMENT IN EDUCATION: PRINCIPLES, POLICY & PRACTICE 13

classroom instruction. The question therefore needs to be raised: In what ways can
formative assessment be embodied in the interactions between the teacher and an entire
class of students? Black and Wiliam (2009) have argued that the creation of moments of
contingency during whole-class discussions is one of the most powerful ways in which
teachers can contribute to the regulation of student learning. In a situated perspective
on learning, co-regulation during whole-class lessons is considered to be more a matter
of ‘participation in a community of learners’ (Rogoff, Matusov, & White, 1996) than
a process of individualised scaffolding.
Ruiz-Primo (2011) conducted a review of research that sheds light on informal
formative assessment as embodied in instructional dialogues during whole-class lessons.
She identified strategies that teachers use to take into account students’ responses and
foster their active participation in formative assessment. She enumerated these strate-
gies as follows (Ruiz-Primo, 2011, p. 20):

● Rephrasing, clarifying, elaborating, summarising, and repeating. . . students’

responses.
● Relating a student’s response to another student’s response.
● Promoting students’ questions and comments about a student’s contribution.
● Displaying students’ responses [e.g., on blackboard].
● Responding with a reflective toss [i.e., tossing a student’s statement or question
back to other students for their reactions].

The teacher’s use of these strategies does not ensure that each student will engage in
self-regulation, but it can increase the likelihood that this will occur and thereby
contribute to the co-regulation of learning. Moreover, several of these strategies pro-
mote dialogue between students as participants in a classroom community.
In research conducted in Geneva, the role of whole-class discussions in the co-
regulation of student learning has been studied in two areas. In the area of mathematics,
Mottier Lopez (2008) recorded and analysed whole-class discussions over an entire
school year in two grade 3 classes. The discussions, conducted after students had
worked on problems in small groups, concerned the transition from additive to multi-
plicative reasoning in problem-solving. Although the two teachers proposed similar
problems and followed globally the same sequence of activities, they had different ways
of involving students in the process of assessment during the whole-class discussions. In
both classes, the students were asked to explain their problem-solving procedures,
which were generally written on the blackboard. In one classroom, the teacher encour-
aged students to re-explain or to pursue (complete or elaborate upon) other students’
explanations, as a way of fostering shared understanding of a pool of usable procedures.
She reserved, however, for herself the role of assessing and validating the quality of the
students’ proposals. In the other classroom, the teacher orchestrated peer exchanges
(asking, for example, ‘What do you think, the rest of you, about what Martine just
said?’); students were encouraged to express opinions about the relevance and effec-
tiveness of the procedure or explanation that a student had presented. This led to active
student participation in the assessment of peer proposals and in the formulation of the
taken-as-shared meaning of the concepts of ‘relevance’ and ‘effectiveness’. In both
classes, data collected on subsequent problem-solving in small groups showed that co-
14 L. ALLAL

regulation, involving both teacher questioning and student participation in whole-class

discussions, was a formative process that required successive enactments over several
months to have an effect on learning (i.e., generalised use of multiplicative strategies).
A study of students learning to compose texts was conducted in three classrooms in
grade 5 that were followed up in grade 6 (Allal, 2018). Although the teachers followed
the same instructional scenario and used the same materials, marked differences were
observed in the way they conducted whole-class discussions prior to students’ produc-
tion and revision of their texts. In one classroom, the teacher encouraged active student
participation in the construction of Writing Guidelines that fostered a view of revision
as including transformation of content and text organisation, in addition to error
correction. The students in this class subsequently carried out more numerous revisions
and relatively more revisions of text content and organisation, as compared to the
students in the other classes. In addition, the students in this class showed a higher
degree of self-regulation (as reflected in the revisions carried out by each student on his
or her text), whereas in the other classes relatively more revisions were derived from
interaction with a peer. The study also showed that depending on the way peer
interaction unfolded (reciprocal feedback vs. joint elaboration), it could either enlarge
or restrict the types of revisions each student finally made.

Concluding remarks
This paper described the emergence, in the French-language and English-language
literature, of the concept of regulation of student learning as the function of formative
assessment in the classroom. It presented several conceptions of co-regulation, includ-
ing a model emphasising the joint influence of the learner’s processes of self-regulation
and of the sources of regulation in the learning environment: namely, the structure of
the teaching/learning situation, the teacher’s interventions and interactions with stu-
dents, the interactions between students, the tools (materials, artefacts, instruments)
used for instruction and for assessment. It discussed examples of research that shed
light on co-regulation linked to formative assessment tools and practices.
Research linking assessment and co-regulation of student learning has not yet been
conducted in a programmatic way. A relatively small number of studies, using disparate
methodologies, has been carried out in primary and secondary classrooms. A major chal-
lenge for future research will thus be to combine, in a systematic way, two directions of
research. The first is experimental and quasi-experimental research that allows identification
and estimation of the effects of various formative assessment tools or procedures on student
learning and self-regulation. This type of research can provide important indications
regarding the key components that should be integrated in a classroom assessment strategy
aimed at the co-regulation of student learning. At the same time, longitudinal, classroom-
based research of the process-tracing type is needed to see how various formative assessment
tools and procedures are mediated by teacher–student interactions and by peer interactions.
Insights from this second type of research are essential to more fully understand the
processes of co-regulation and to formulate new hypotheses to be tested in experimental
research. In a situated perspective on classroom learning, the starting point for both types of
research needs to be the recognition that aim of education is not self-regulated learning but
active student participation in increasingly complex forms of co-regulated learning.
 ASSESSMENT IN EDUCATION: PRINCIPLES, POLICY & PRACTICE 15

Notes
1. The term décalage is borrowed from Piaget but does not refer to his concept of horizonal
and vertical décalages (time-lags in development). Rather it reflects the basic thesis of
equilibration that development (and by extension, learning, as discussed in this paper)
requires a certain discrepancy (disparity, contradiction) between the existing knowledge
structure of the learner and the structure of the learning activity or task. The learner’s
sensitivity to this discrepancy (prise de conscience) triggers cognitive conflict leading to the
process of equilibration.
2. In resonance with Reed (1996), the concepts of affordances and of learner agency are used
in this paper as follows. Affordances are features (material, technological, cultural, inter-
personal) of a learning context that offer opportunities for action by the learner; affor-
dances thereby support and at the same time constrain the learner’s activity. Whether and
how the learner recognizes and appropriates affordances are a matter of learner agency
(i.e., exploratory activity and focused goal-directed activity by the learner).

Acknowledgements
The perspectives presented in this paper benefitted from contributions of the team who worked
with me over a number of years on research and on teacher education in the area of classroom
assessment: Céline Buchs, Katia Lehraus, Lucie Mottier Lopez, Anne Perréard Vité, Yviane
Rouiller, Geneviève Schwartz, Walther Tessaro, and Edith Wegmuller.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor
Linda Allal received a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from Michigan State University, USA, in
1973, and was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Liège, Belgium, in 2013.
After a career spanning 33 years at the Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences of the
University of Geneva, Switzerland, she is professor emeritus since 2006. Her research concerns
the relations between learning, teaching, and assessment in school settings. Her recent publica-
tions address issues of assessment for learning, teachers’ professional judgement in their practice
of assessment, and processes of co-regulation during classroom writing activities.

ORCID
Linda Allal http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6318-3129

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