What is the purpose of assessment?

1. Assessment and FeedbackElaine M Smith – HEA AssociateAssociate Dean (Learning, Teaching and Quality)School of Engineering and Built EnvironmentGlasgow Caledonian Universityesm@gcu.ac.uk June 2012

2. What is the purpose of assessment? • Activity 1 • Divide into groups and think of 10 reasons why we assess

3. Purposes of assessment To pass or fail a student To grade or rank a student To diagnose a student’s strengths and weaknesses To provide feedback to students To motivate students To provide a profile of what a student has learnt To predict success in future courses To predict success in employment To select for future courses To select for future employment To give credence to a course To tell students what they have achieved To tell students how to improve their performance To provide feedback to lecturers? To motivate lecturers?

4. QAA Code of Practice - assessment QAA Code of Practice for the assurance of academic quality and standards in Higher Education – Excerpt from Section 6 Assessment of Students http://www.qaa.ac.uk/academicinfrastructure/codeOfPractice/section6/default.asp#p2 12: In higher education, 'assessment' describes any processes that appraise an individual's knowledge, understanding, abilities or skills. There are many different forms of assessment, serving a variety of purposes. These include: 13: The way in which students are assessed fundamentally affects their learning. Good assessment practice is designed to ensure that, in order to pass the module or programme, students have to demonstrate they have achieved the intended learning outcomes.

5. Possible criteria for lab marking Activity 2 Divide into groups and think of 5 criteria for marking a lab report

6. Possible criteria for lab marking Knowledge and understanding of the subject Structure of report Clarity of meaning Supporting points with evidence Has the student answered the question(s)? Relevancy Understanding of task Has the work been carried out? Distinction between fact and interpretation Applying ideas in new contexts Evidence of critical and evaluative abilities Originality/creativity Clear use of English Clear presentation

7. Possible criteria for lab marking Do graphs observe the desired conventions? Are the numbers quoted correct? Appropriate use of discipline-specific jargon Discipline-specific conventions Recording of data Appropriate figures, table and graphs Are all figures, graphs and tables helpfully titled?

8. Challenges of assessment • Do I have clear criteria and a mark scheme? • Does the criteria help me to award marks consistently across submissions? • Will the assignment provide evidence against the learning outcomes of the module? • Do I know what the threshold for passing this assignment should be?

9. QAA Code of Practice - feedback QAA Code of Practice for the assurance of academic quality and standards in Higher Education – Excerpt from Section 6 Assessment of Students Institutions provide appropriate and timely feedback to students on assessed work in a way that promotes learning and facilitates improvement but does not increase the burden of assessment. Concentrating staff effort on providing feedback during the learning process has the added benefit of giving students advice about how to improve their performance in time to affect their final mark.

10. Terminology • Diagnostic Assessment • Formative Assessment • Assessment for providing feedback to learners in order to help them learn, and feedback to teachers for deciding how a student’s learning should be taken forward. • Summative Assessment • Assessment which provides overall evidence of the achievement of students and of what they know, understand and can do, by assigning a value to what the student achieves.

11. Feedback & Feed Forward • Feedback • comments on a completed work that the student cannot repeat. The comments are useful to inform the student about strengths of their work and areas for further development in future assessments. • Feed forward • mostly what has been called feedback – where a student has an opportunity to respond to the ‘comments’, e.g. a formative hand in – constructive criticism.

12. Listening to the Students The National Student Survey shows that the areas where students are least satisfied with their experience of higher education are feedback and assessment. In particular, they don’t seem to get enough formative feedback, and it is not helping them as much as it should.

13. Race’s Argument. Feedback should be: Timely – the sooner the better. Personal and individual – each student is still a person. Articulate – message getting across first time round. Empowering – warming up learning, not dampening it down. Manageable – for us but also for them. Developmental – opening doors, not closing them.

14. Sadler’s argument For feedback to benefit learning students must know: 1. What good performance is (goals, criteria) 2. How current performance relates to good performance (compare) 3. How to act to close the gap Implies that students ‘must already possess some of the same evaluative skills as the teacher’ (Sadler, 1983).

15. Outline of SENLEF report(Student Enhanced Learning through Effective Feedback) • Briefing Paper on formative assessment and feedback and self-regulation of learning • Conceptual model • 7 principles of good feedback practice • Simple strategies • 50 case studies of good practice Publication available on HEA website. http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/ourwork/learning/assessment/senlef

16. Key message Formative assessment and feedback by others can only have an impact on learning when it influences a student’s own self-regulatory processes - whereby learners set goals (adapted from Boud, 1995).

17. The Seven Feedback Principles • Helps clarify what good performance is (goals, standards, criteria) • Facilitates development of self-assessment in learning • Delivers high quality information to students about their learning • Encourages teacher and peer dialogue around learning. • Encourages positive motivational beliefs and self-esteem. • Provides opportunities to close the gap between current and desired performance. • Provides information to teachers that can be used to shape teaching.

18. Effective Feedback – PIE Positive – start with something good Improvement – identify one area to work on Example – provide a specific example

19. Activity 3 Efficiency and Learning Pay-off Feedback Product It is sometimes useful to take an analytical approach so let’s analyse student feedback methods. Firstly, identify the different ways that a lecturer can give feedback to students and then consider the additional ways that students can get feedback. Then place both types of feedback onto the graph estimating the appropriate part of the sector

21. How Can we Improve Feedback? • Consider ways of giving quicker feedback • Re-consider the volume of feedback • More use of Technology? • Can you give feedback without marks? • Can you ask students to estimate their own mark? • Is self/peer assessment an option? • Use the if statement to prioritise • Your mark could have been higher if………………….

22. Signposting Feedback

24. Feedback - be careful what you wish for! Prices up! Robbers Won’t be back

25. Assessment and Feedback – resources (1) • Academy resources/webpage: [http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/ourwork/learning/assessment] • Assessment and Feedback (student views) : video download • Marking Criteria and Assessment Methods (student and staff perspectives): video download • Plagiarism (student views): video download • Resources in Assessment: iPod podcast • Assessment - HE in FE: DVD • Scottish Quality Enhancement Themes [http://www.enhancementthemes.ac.uk/themes/]

26. Assessment Theme from 2004 Reflections on Assessment: Volume IWorkshop 1: Streamlining assessment- how to make assessment more efficient and more effective - Workshop 2: Using assessment to motivate learning - Workshop 3: Constructive alignment of learning outcomes to assessment methods Workshop 4: Developing a variety of assessment methods, including self and peer assessment - Reflections on Assessment: Volume IIWorkshop 5: Assessing online Workshop 6: Issues of validity, reliability and fairness Workshop 7: Improving feedback to Workshop 8: Assessing personal transferable skills

27. Assessment and Feedback – resources (2) • EngSC resources/webpage: [http://www.engsc.ac.uk/er/assessment/index.asp] • Assessment of Learning Outcomes (ALOE) [http://www.engsc.ac.uk/downloads/scholarart/learning_outcomes.pdf] • Feedback event [http://www.engsc.ac.uk/nef/events/feedback.asp] • Mini-Projects, Teaching Awards • Novel Approaches to Student Engagement (NAPSE) [http://www.ulster.ac.uk/napse] – poster presentations

28. Assessment and Feedback – resources (3) • Other resources: • Designing student learning by promoting formative assessment (Bone, 2008) [http://www.ukcle.ac.uk/newsevents/lilac/2008/papers/bone.html] • Hong Kong Polytechnic Assessment Resource Centre: [http://www.polyu.edu.hk/assessment/arc/sitemap.htm] • Times Higher (29 January 2009) [http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=405152&c=2]

29. Assessment and Feedback – CETLs (1) • Assessment for Learning (AfL) @ Northumbria: [http://www.northumbria.ac.uk/cetl_afl/] • Research and evaluate: see http://www.northumbria.ac.uk/cetl_afl/research/toolkit/?view=Standard • Case studies: see http://www.northumbria.ac.uk/static/5007/cetlpdf/casestudies1.pdf [ no. 3 in engineering] • Resources and publications (inc. signpost leaflets): see http://www.northumbria.ac.uk/cetl_afl/resources/?view=Standard

30. Assessment and Feedback – CETLs (2) • Assessment Standards Knowledge exchange (ASKe) @ Oxford Brookes: [http://www.business.brookes.ac.uk/learningandteaching/aske/?err404=/learningandteaching/aske/] • 1,2,3 leaflets:Each leaflet focuses on a piece of assessment-related research and clearly states how that research can be applied to teaching practice in three easy steps. • Assessment Perspectives: a collection of brief articles outlining ideas, new thinking and differing views on assessment. • Publications: since 2004, by staff associated with the CETL