Will Curtis & Jane McDonnell De Montfort University

1. Implementing democratic assessment in higher educationLearning from an action research project with students Will Curtis & Jane McDonnell De Montfort University Enhancing Student Feedback – Best Practice Workshop, 8th February 2012, De Montfort University

2. Context • The value of constructivist pedagogic approaches – students as active participants (Windschitl, 1999) • BUT disconnect between teaching and feedback • Higher education as fertile ground for democratic practice: • Levels of freedom and equality • Political agency • Changing demographic of student body • Collaborative work in assessment and feedback in HE (Pryor & Crossouard, 2010; Webb, 2010)

3. Why democratic feedback and what kind of democracy? • Democracy as: • Transformation through dialogue – students and teachers as active co-constructors of meaning and knowledge (and the subsequent liberatory potential of education) (Freire, 1993) • Disruption and conflict – challenging the grounds of the debate/ framework for discussion (Mouffe, 2005; Ranciére, 1999; 2006) So…. • Challenging the framework of current feedback practice: • Criteria, authority, relations, kinds of judgment, expertise

4. Assessment relations - Adapted from Heron (1988)

5. Relation to existing research • Significance of dialogue in feedback for academic progress (Bloxham & West, 2007; Bloxham and Campbell, 2010) • Exploring dialogue in feedback from a democratic perspective • Importance of students coming to an understanding of academic quality that fits with tutors’ expectations (Sadler, 1989, 1995; Hounsell et al., 2008) • Using radical understandings of democracy to explore the possibility of challenging the framework for discussion – criteria, authority, expertise

6. The intervention • Employed student as researcher on the project • Student-led focus group discuss current feedback practices with Ed Studies students • Conducted with level 4 students • One lecturer with two students (three times) • Students and lecturers write reflections • Conducted with level 6 students on ‘Radical Educations’ • Two lecturers with two students (two times) • Student-led focus group immediately after intervention • Students and lecturers write reflections

7. ‘Demystifying’ feedback Social and emotional discomfort

8. Social and emotional discomfort • “…you have to have strong people doing this though, some people just don’t want to give their point of view and just make everyone happy then that’s where it could fall down” • “….you have to be honest and not feel guilty or take things to heart” • “It’s hard as well to give an honest mark when the person is sat next to you if you know they would want higher than what you have in mind in case you upset them” • “….difficult to give someone a mark when there sat next to you. I think you were brave to be honest” • “I can take criticism when it’s on the sheet, you just bin it, but when someone’s sitting and telling you then it’s harder.” • “….you might have someone that totally disagrees and some people may get quite angry or emotional, Idon’t think everyone could do this.”

9. Democratic feedback cycle Participation Plurality Competence Self-confidence NEXT

10. Transparency • “…looking at the marking criteria it make you realise how difficult it is to give someone a number as often you may hit some of the points from two or three brackets which makes it really hard” • “…it gave me more understanding of my work. If I had this from the first year I think I would have been getting really high marks by now. It would have given me more understanding of what was required of me. It’s good knowing what the lecturers want themselves and also it gives you that understanding to why you don’t get a good mark and that to be explained and how to improve.” • “I met some of the criteria but not others…. I was in a certain band but then not others so it makes it in the lower part but that shows how insignificant they really are.” • Back

11. Participation • “…critical of your own work as you would know I have to give this a mark and speak about it and defend it” • “…we discussed and explained things that hadn’t been clear in the essay so it gives you scope to explain things better and explain what you meant when you wrote something” • “….if you only did it in first year when you got to second year and got a mark you weren’t happy with it would be like you didn’t have any control of it anymore” • Back

12. Plurality • “…highlights how different people mark and it seems fairer to have 4 people with differing opinions decide as oppose to just one person give you a mark” • “I found it difficult as we had both different ideas of what made a good essay. Like you thought I had used to many quotes whereas I didn’t think you had used enough. We both had very different styles of writing so it was hard to compare and mark them” • …“The points that were made were valid and everyone didn’t just go along with it, it was just we had all picked up the same point. That surely makes it more valid and allows you to see it more?” • “I felt like one person influenced the whole group first and then everyone just agreed. Like as soon as someone mentioned something then the whole group went along with it and that influenced it too much”… • Back

13. Competence • “I feel that it’s a shame to do it on the last essay I ever wrote as I feel doing this throughout would have improved my grades. Would have understood how could get more marks and which areas I was doing well and what I could improve on. I think as well I would have used the marking criteria more when reading my work back so you could judge yourself before you gave it in as you would know you were going to have to have an idea of what you thought you had got” • “…it does make you understand better your mark”… • …”yeah it makes you see your strengths and weaknesses” • Back

14. Self-confidence • “I also found it hard as I hate people reading my work, so having three people that had read it discussing it with me weird. But I actually think it was really good and helpful and I enjoyed doing it” • “….it helps you to understand marking and make you more likely to pay close attention the criteria and maybe gives you more confidence to contest things that you’re not happy with” • Back

15. So democratic assessment…. • Challenges taken-for-granted assessment relations and authorities: • What is a good piece of work? • Who decides? • Demystifying feedback processes as educational experience in and of itself - beyond academia to broader democratic engagement • Requires sensitivity to, and careful negotiation of, student lack of confidence and emotional dynamics

16. Implications – where next? • Some interesting paradoxes: • Distinction between expertise as role (the ‘expert’) and expertise as quality (skill, knowledge, understanding….) • Counter-Enlightenment ?– Does a ‘scientific’ approach to feedback mysticise it? • Feeding into our ESCalate funded project examining student-lecturer collaborative enquiry and Education Studies assessment feedback practices • Considering and developing more practicable forms of feedback relations based on participation, transparency, plurality, competence and self-confidence