The way we view mind affects the way we perceive learning, culture and the relationship between the three (mind+ learning+ culture).  In this article these notions will be further challenged by exploring the implications of assessment and gender in relations to the views of mind. The exploration will be mostly based on the construction of an overall continuum that will associate on the one hand the two views of mind and learning and on the other the assessment methods and gender.

This continuum is presented in the following figure, and it will be used as a map for the further exploration on the issues of assessment, gender and views of learning.

Illustration that combines the view of mind and learning and the ideas about assessment and gender.

In the symbol processing view of mind, where knowledge is considered to be located in the head of the individual, an accepted assessment method pursues to measure this knowledge by evaluating the responses against an accepted ‘answer’. The responses are not considered to be influenced by the characteristics of the learners and teachers while gender is seen as a sex-group, where differences can be reported.

In social constructivism, although learners are considered to construct their own meaning socially, nevertheless knowledge is still considered to be located in the individual’s head. Thus a suitable assessment method would still pursue to measure this individual knowledge, even thought it was constructed socially. Gender is seen as a socially positioned concept that influences student experiences and their performance in the particular assessment method.

An example of policy and practice that fits to social constructivism views of leaning and assessment is again the assessment system in architectural drawing. The candidates can select whether they will get examination in architectural drawing and through this to gain access in an architectural school. Under this system, males probably self-exclude themselves from architectural studies, by not selecting to take examinations in this course (the course is related with art and decoration which stereotypically considered as female activities)  

In the situated view of mind and under sociocultural perspective the notions of learning, mind, gender and assessment are culturally generated. Classroom could be considered as a complex ecosystem, where learning, mind, gender and assessment are entangled. Whatever interferes in the relationship between teacher and student, like a new assessment method, would normally become part of this ecosystem. Students, either boys or girls, bring to the class myriad influences from other cultural context. Teachers send messages about what they consider successful or valued knowledge according to boys and girls. Therefore all the constitutive parts of a classroom interact. In other words learning, the assessment of that learning, the siociocultural, historical lives of students and teachers, and the economicopolitical contexts in which assessment operates interact.

An example of policy and practice that fits to sociocultural ideas could be the classroom of architectural drawing. The teacher might send gendered messages about what constitutes a “good” drawing, (male superiority in technical drawing and female superiority in decorative drawing) affecting unwillingly or willingly his judgment about boys and girls abilities.

Finally, I perceived that under sociocultural ideas the results of any assessment should be evaluated, not as isolated incidents, but in relation to many influential parameters, like the teacher’s characteristics, the relationship between teacher and students, the boys and girls’ individual forms of life, etc. Both the assessor and the assessed should be involved and participate in the assessment process, enabling the meaning to be negotiated, while the assessed should be allowed to discern for themselves what they need to learn, to adopt adequate strategies of learning, to set their own criteria of evaluation, to undertake self-peer assessment, etc.