Sentiment analysis of primary school teachers’ attitudes towards formative assessment policies: linking teachers’ attitudes to school support and assessment practices

The success of formative assessment (FA) relies on multiple factors; however, research on how these factors jointly relate to FA practices remains limited. This study aimed to explore how two factors, school support and teachers’ attitudes, form teacher profiles, and how these profiles differ in their FA practices. A survey was conducted with 402 Vietnamese primary school teachers using non-probability sampling in an educational reform context. Alongside Likert-scale measures, teachers’ attitudes were captured through an open-ended question to reflect teachers’ evaluations of FA, and were then quantified using sentiment analysis. Latent profile analysis identified four heterogeneous teacher groups, and MANOVA showed significant differences in FA practices across these groups. Specifically, evidence collection and written feedback varied more clearly across groups with different levels of school support, whereas verbal feedback and peer- and self-assessment were more differentiated by teachers’ attitudes. The results offer insights for implementing FA approaches in reform contexts.