Assessment and feedback are at the heart of student experience

Assessment and feedback practices are at the heart of the student experience; as Ramsden (2003: 182) indicated, from the student point of view “assessment always defines the actual curriculum”. Assessment and feedback done well has the potential to have a huge positive impact on student learning, but, as suggested by David Boud (1998):

Students can, with difficulty, escape from the effects of poor teaching, they cannot (by definition if they want to graduate) escape the effects of poor assessment.

Recent developments in assessment and feedback research have highlighted the need for the experience of assessment and feedback to shift from something that is “done to” students, in which they play a relatively passive role, to a more dialogic activity which engages them in all stages of the process (e.g. from designing criteria, to providing feedback to peers, to demonstrating how feedback has been used to improve). These practices are often referred to as “sustainable”, in that they prepare students to make judgements about their own learning and develop lifelong skills that they will use beyond University (Boud, 2000). This has led to an abundance of research into how staff can help students to develop this “assessment literacy” (e.g. Carless & Boud, 2018), which includes actively seeking feedback, making good use of feedback, and managing the emotional aspects of receiving feedback.

The refreshed University Assessment and Feedback policy draws on and reflects these developments. The policy underpins and complements the Curriculum Design Framework, and provides a set of principles which promote:

• the design of inclusive and real-world assessment tasks
• clear communication and guidance to students, including assessment criteria
• the management of assessment processes such as anonymous assessment
• quality processes, including moderation and calibration
• feedback to support learning

In the case of assessment criteria, the policy emphasises the requirement to make these available to students at the start of their module, and also to provide opportunities for students to engage with these (e.g. via discussion or application, such as the marking of exemplar work or integrating opportunities for peer assessment).

Throughout the 21/22 academic year work on assessment criteria will continue, with a Task & Finish Group working towards an institutional definition of assessment criteria, and how these relate to other artefacts such as learning outcomes, grading descriptors and rubrics.

For more information, please contact Juliet Eve in the Learning and Teaching Hub.

References:
Boud, D. (1998) Presentation to the Conference ‘Effective Assessment at University’, University of Queensland, 4-5 November 1998

Boud, D. (2000) Sustainable Assessment: Rethinking assessment for the learning society, Studies in Continuing Education, 22:2, 151-167

Carless, D. & Boud, D. (2018) The development of student feedback literacy: enabling uptake of feedback, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, [open access online, accessed 15/11/21] DOI:10.1080/02602938.2018.1463354

Ramsden, P. (2003) Learning to teach in higher education 2nd edition. Abingdon: Routledge.

Photo by Sammie Chaffin on Unsplash