Making the grade - Marked for life!

If we wish to discover the truth about an educational system, we must look into its assessment procedures. What student qualities and achievements are actively valued and rewarded by the system? How are its purposes and intentions realized? To what extent are the hopes and ideals, aims and objectives professed by the system ever truly perceived, valued and striven for by those who make their way within it? The answers to such questions are to be found in what the system requires students to do in order to survive and prosper. The spirit and style of student assessment defines the de facto curriculum. (Rowntree, 1987, p. 1)

Ramsden (1992) argues that assessment is the single most influential factor affecting student learning. Student learning research has shown that inappropriate assessment methods lead to a focus on memorisation as a strategy for learning and to high levels of anxiety. Methods which rely on factual recall rather than on revealing understanding also make it possible for students to pass courses without teachers identifying student misconceptions. A recent study in the UK by McDowell, Sambell and Brown (1996) investigated the impact of innovative assessment (e.g. group projects, oral presentations, open-book exams, self and peer assessment, poster presentations, etc.) on student behaviour. They found that students wanted to be challenged by their assessment. Students were more likely to approach innovative assessment in a thorough, careful, and scrupulous way, whereas traditional exams were more likely to be approached in a negligent and unthinking way. Feedback was identified by students as crucial to their continuing learning, as was a mix of challenge and support. Reported student comments on traditional exams included:

something you have to do; an encumbrance; not meaningful, a necessary evil; separate from learning; you shallow learn for an exam; it's poor learning which you quickly forget; rather like an eating disorder - you cram it and then vomit.

Whereas reported student comments on alternative methods of assessment included:

a real project; involving personal interest; difficult to say where learning stops and assessment begins; more chance to express your ideas; more of self in the work; more equitable; thorough; it is fairer (i.e. fairness is not just about preventing cheating but about rewarding the time and effort invested in meaningful learning); more difficult and requires consistent application.

Nightingale et al. (1996) identify the following trends in assessment practice:

• From a focus on teaching and assessing substantive knowledge within the discipline towards a broader aim of also teaching generic skills such as team work and oral presentations, and therefore assessing a range of student achievements.
• From assessment tasks designed to measure student learning, 'How much do they know?', towards assessment tasks designed to promote and assess significant learning, i.e. 'What is the quality of what is known?'.
• From teacher assessment to the inclusion of self and peer assessment, especially as a way of promoting the professional requirement of self-evaluation and independent judgement.

What is your de facto curriculum? Is it congruent with what you are trying to achieve? Does it support what you want your students to learn and, especially, with how you want them to learn?

• McDowell, L., Sambell, K & Brown, S. (1996). The impact of innovative assessment on student learning. Paper presented at The Northumbria Assessment Conference: Changing Assessment to Improve Learning, Northumberland, UK.
• Nightingale, P. et al. (1996). Assessing Learning in Universities. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press.
• Ramsden, P. (1992). Learning to Teach in Higher Education. London: Routledge..
• Rowntree, D. (1987). Assessing Students - How Shall We Know Them? London: Kogan Page.

Previously published as Making the Grade - Marked for Life. (1998). Issues of Teaching and Learning, 4(3).