1,721,860 research outputs found
Reframing assessment as if learning was important
No full textAs we have seen, an overall theme of this book is that it is time to rethink what is being done in assessment in higher education in order to foster learning for the longer term. In this chapter I suggest that we not only need to engage in specific assessment reforms, but there should be a major reframing of what assessment exists to do, how it is discussed and the language used to describe it. This requires a central educational idea to which participants in higher education can subscribe: that is, a view of the direction in which the enterprise of assessment should be moving. It is only through establishing a counter-discourse to the one that currently dominates higher education that some of the fundamental problems created by current assessment assumptions and practice can be addressed
Assessment and emotion: the impact of being assessed
No full textAssessment has traditionally been treated in the literature as a technical activity that involves measurement with little impact on those assessed. This chapter challenges this assumption and suggests that the unintended consequences of assessment are substantial. We identify some literature that might be useful in investigating the role of emotion in learning and assessment, but acknowledge that, surprisingly, it is a greatly under-researched area. We make a contribution of our own through the examination of a set of students’ autobiographical stories about the experience of being assessed. We suggest that, while the ways in which assessment is experienced are diverse, the experience of being assessed is interpreted as both positive and negative in its impact. In some cases the interaction between the learner and the assessment event is so negative that it has an emotional impact that lasts many years and affects career choices, inhibits new learning and changes behaviour towards one’s own students in subsequent teaching situations. We suggest that the emotional experience of being assessed is complex and is a function of the relationship between the expectations and dispositions of a learner, relationships between learners and other people, the judgements made about learners and the ways in which judgements are made
Developing assessment for informing judgement
No full textAt the start of this book, we proposed that a new discourse of assessment in higher education is required and that it should focus on the key organising idea of informing judgement. We suggested that there is a need for a way of discussing assessment that draws attention to its educational features rather than its regulatory ones. The notion of informing judgement is not just a rhetorical intervention into debates about teaching, learning and assessment but an idea that aims to change current assessment practice to give a sharper educational focus. However, it is not sufficient to focus on the ways we talk about assessment alone. New sets of practices and ways of organising assessment need to be developed in order to enact this way of thinking. The kinds of assessment activity in which staff and students engage will need to shift in emphasis
Introduction: assessment for the longer term
No full textAssessment affects people’s lives. The future directions and careers of students depend on it. There are risks involved in changing assessment without considering the consequences. This has meant that there has been very slow movement in the development of new assessment ideas and changes in practice. We face a system of assessment that has been subject to slow incremental change, to compromise and to inertia. We are afraid to change the system because of the risks, but we also avoid looking at it because doing so might entail major effort
Decision-making for feedback
No full textFeedback has proved problematic for individual learners, for teachers and for institutions. The lack and availability of it is criticised by students. Teachers bemoan the burden of marking. And leaders of educational institutions wonder why, of all things they have to deal with, feedback creates so much difficulty. There is no shortage of proposals and recipes for action. Is it just a matter of seriously attending to these and ensuring that they are put into practice? If only it were clear what feedback was and how it could be implemented well, then the problems should severely diminish. The fact that so much has been written about the topic and so much energy has been expended without resolving the problem suggests more of the same is not enough. So much has been invested in the idea that it can't be wished away; it has to be confronted. New ways of thinking about feedback are needed. A clear view of current assumptions and practice is needed as a starting point, but it is also important to step back and examine feedback in its wider context to see what it promises and what it might be reasonably be expected to do
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