Changes in conceptions of elementary pre-service teachers about assessment in science

This paper describes and analyses the changes in conceptions about assessment in the subject of Natural Science undergone by students of the Master Degree in Primary Education at the University of Seville while participating in a training course focused on how to teach Natural Science in primary school. The 347 participants were organized into 92 teams, divided into five classrooms run by five different teachers all of whom following the same teaching strategy. We analyse the teams 'written production on the topic of assessment at the beginning and at the end of the course. The results reveal that there is a change in their knowledge for the three categories studied by us (meaning, tools and content assessment), but the predominance of formative assessment approach is not achieved. We describe the different levels of progression on the topic of assessment that can serve as reference for primary pre-service teacher education.