Developing assessment in
the Arts, Humanities and
Social Sciences
Prof. Sue Bloxham
S.bloxham@cumbria.ac.uk
Workshop outcomes
Provide participants with an opportunity to:
- Explore the validity of assessment methods in use;
- Consider how assessment can be used to foster
high quality student learning
- improve the engagement of students and support
the achievement of a diverse student body;
-
Adopt a programme-level approach to assessment
planning
- Apply the workshop material to their own
assessment planning
Workshop structure
• Valid assessment – alignment with
programme learning outcomes/ aims for a
21st century education
• Learning orientated assessment
• Taking a programme approach
• Assessment and the transition to higher
education for diverse students
• Programme level planning and application
of workshop ideas
Valid assessment – (QAA)
• the range and types of assessments used measure
appropriately students‘ achievement of the knowledge, skills
and understanding identified as intended learning outcomes.
It is important that each assessment enables students to
demonstrate the extent to which they meet the intended
learning outcomes in respect of both the subject and any
generic skills.*
• Is your assessment FIT FOR PURPOSE?
* QAA Quality Code (2013)
Dimensions of Knowledge
 Factual: facts a student needs to be familiar with;
 Conceptual: knowledge such as knowledge of
classifications, principles, theories, models and
structures;
 Procedural: knowing how to do something including
techniques, skills and methods of enquiry,
 Metacognitive: knowledge of self and cognitive tasks and
methods of learning and organising ideas
(from Anderson, 2003:29)
21st Century higher education
• Skills for the ‘knowledge economy’*
– Critical thinking and problem-solving
– Collaboration across networks and leading by
influence
– Agility and adaptability
– Initiative and entrepreneurialism
– Effective oral and written communication
– Accessing and analysing information
– Curiosity and imagination
Do these attributes figure in
Programme/ unit outcomes and do
assessment tasks foster and test
these broader skills and capacities?
* ‘Must have’
skills for the
future to tackle
the ‘Global
achievement
gap’ (Wagner,
2008)
A 21st Century education?:
The USEM account of employability
S
E
Personal
qualities,
including
selftheories
and
efficacy
beliefs
Skills
including
key skills
Employability,
citizenship, life, etc
Subject
understanding
U
Metacognition
M
Yorke & Knight 2004
Discussion
Working with colleagues in your own or a
cognate discipline
• Have a discussion about your existing
assessment methods and identify the
challenges for achieving really valid
assessment of 21st century learning outcomes
• Describe the challenge you face with this and
write it down
Purposes of assessment
• Certification
(of learning)
• Quality Assurance
(of)
• Encourage effective learning (for)
• Encourage life long learning
(sustainable assessment) (as)
The unbalanced purposes
of assessment
Assessment for
and as learning
Certification & QA
Characteristics of learning-oriented
assessment
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Formative
Demands higher order learning
Learning and assessment are integrated
Students are involved in assessment
It promotes thinking about the learning process;
Assessment expectations should be made clear;
Involves active engagement of students, developing
independent learning;
Tasks should be authentic and involve choice ;
Tasks align with important learning outcomes
Assessment should be used to evaluate teaching.
Unseen exams
• They often come at the
end of a course;
• They are not integrated
into the learning;
• The criteria are oblique,
• They rarely result in
useful feedback,
• They do not encourage retention of learning,
• They struggle to encourage or assess higher level
learning: application, analysis, evaluation
• Neither teacher nor student knows if their learning is
on track until after the course has ended.
Exams: ‘The silent killer of learning’ – Mazur.
Essays
have the potential to meet
many characteristics but:
• Often no formative element – you and the students
may not be aware of weaknesses until too late
• Questions may ask students to ‘evaluate’ or ‘critically
assess’ a topic but if students can pass adequately by
regurgitating others’ evaluation or criticism (from
lectures or reading), they may avoid higher order
learning.
• Students not involved in assessment or thinking about
learning
• Rarely authentic
• Criteria often oblique
Enquiry-based example: social science
Introduced to lecturer’s research
Exploring signs of childhood
Photos posted on line – annotated by self and others
2 visits to museum, gallery, library to collect other images
Round table conference facilitated by more experienced
students
6. Submit summative research report
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Sambell, (2010).
Enquiry-based assessment:
benefits
• integrated with the learning
• encourages independent
and active learning
• involves students in the
assessment process (avoiding
grades in the early stages)
• higher order skills,
complexity
• authenticity, choice
• includes formative stages,
students can get help and
feedback in a low stakes way
• Expectations available to students
both in written criteria and
embedded in feedback
• Potential to integrate learning
from university with learning
from other contexts
Patchwork text: example from English
• Aim to improve students’ reading, critical thinking and writing
about tragedy in drama
• Provisional and exploratory patch writing weekly, e.g:
500 words: any Greek element you find ‘alien’/ fascinatingly strange
500 word pen portrait of a character you sympathise with/ feel for/
understand
• Patches peer reviewed and discussed in class
• final assignment: a piece of critical-reflective writing which
‘stitches together’ - reflects on and records the processes of
coming to a critical understanding of the field – (used as the
basis for revision for final exam?)
• In most cases, patches are
submitted as an appendix to the
final piece.
Parker, 2003
Teacher education: embedding
formative assessment in a portfolio
• First year students, assessment 4000 word portfolio;
• Professional Development Activity (PDA) after each taught session;
• the PDAs were used in various ways:
– peer reviewing;
– collating
– applying research to a case or problem
– sharing of work.
• Summative assignment 1500 words
• eight PDAs as appendices referenced in the text.
• Favourable student evaluation
• Higher marks, better engagment
Georgia Prescott, Cumbria
Patchwork text
see Winter et al (2003) for more detail
• Assessment is integrated with
learning
• Integrates formative and
summative assessment
• Student involvement in assessment
• Complex task requiring higher
order and critical thinking
• Independent, autonomous
learning
• Reflection and focus on learning
process
• May offer greater writing
opportunities to diverse students
Psychology Redesign
e.g.’Assess the strengths and weaknesses of Freud’s and Eysenck’s theories of personality.
Are the theories incompatible?
• Guidance provided for tackling the question and
working in a group;
• Best definitions & essays posted on VLE as feedback;
• Students used familiar language to discuss academic
concepts – Dialogue and explanation.
Nicol 2009
19
• 560 students in groups of 6-7;
• 3 week cycle culminating in 700-800 word essay
Regular group assignments
• Promotes sense of belonging and retention
• Students learn through explanation and peer
support
• Regular formative feedback
• Engagement throughout
course
• Learning and assessment
integrated
Some other assessment methods
• Writing tasks: newspaper articles, press releases, executive
summaries, information sheets (authentic tasks).
• Video about a specific topic – Youtube? (developing new
skills)
• Research Grant applications (lots of learning, less marking)
• Lay commentary on specialist material, e.g. journal article
(being able to explain things to non specialists – demonstrate
understanding)
•
•
•
•
Poster – (presenting information clearly & concisely)
Presentation – ‘explanation’ as learning
Real problems and case study analysis (problem solving)
Reflective Journals, Diaries & learning logs (thinking about
learning)
• Wikipedia entry (explaining accurately to non-specialists)
Benefits to students of moving to in-class,
on-line, ongoing assessment and feedback
• Immediate feedback
• More feedback
• Assessment & teaching/learning are
integrated
• Students involved in assessment – gaining
better understanding of standards and own
performance
• Potential for greater student engagement
throughout modules
• More independent study
• integration with work
experience
• Raise expectations regarding
study workload
Quicker, cheaper and low stakes
Discussion
In your teams
• Consider the extent to which existing
assessment (summative and formative) is
learning oriented
• Describe the challenge you face with this and
write it down
Major problems in
‘programme’ assessment
1. Not assessing programme outcomes.
2. Courses too short for complex learning - atomisation
of assessment
3. Separation of assessment and the educational
process
4. Students and staff failing to see the links between
courses on their programme.
5. Surface learning and ‘tick-box’ mentality.
6. Over-standardisation in assessment regulations.
7. Too much summative – not enough formative.
Adapted from: Programme Assessment Strategies PASS:
24
http://www.pass.brad.ac.uk/workshop.php
Programme assessment
ideas
Accumulative
projects.
Capstone course, eg
fashion show.
Portfolio/E-portfolio
25
PASS project
http://www.pass.brad.ac.uk
/workshop.php
Capstone module: Investigating
Professions in the Social Sciences
• Students research a professional field they are
interested in – make a short presentation to class
(formative);
• Compile a CV, mock application (for a real job) and
covering letter (20% -Careers service help assess this)
• Write an assignment: Consider the ways in which
social science has been used to shape practice in the
professional area: 80%
Programme – employability link
• It requires students to bring together learning from
across their programme – both knowledge and skills;
• Students are encouraged to recognise practical skills
and knowledge transfer as part of their studies.
• It uses the assessment to ensure that students develop
skills relevant to employability such as accessing career
resources and researching careers – vital for students on
non-vocational programmes
• It ensures that students are
prepared for recruitment
activities, e.g. compiling
CVs and tackling
applications
Slight & Bloxham (2005) Embedding personal
development planning into the social sciences LATISS
Programme assessment:
Coventry Business
Management
• Each year will have a unifying theme, focussing on a different
sector exemplified by a local employer with a global reach or
brand – 1st Year Cadburys/Kraft, 2nd Year Jaguar, 3rd Year
Barclays.
• Second semester of each year, 50% assessment will be
through a large integrative task, which will be designed to
assess learning from all three modules.
• 50% of each module will be independently assessed, but
other 50% will come from the assessment of the integrated
task against different criteria appropriate to each module’s
different learning outcomes.
28
Assessment to support transition
for diverse students
• Ensure plenty of formative assessment
opportunity
• Help students understand ‘the rules of the
game’
• Resist the temptation to ‘spoon-feed’ students
• Help students develop academic and library
skills, giving them plenty of opportunity for
practice and feedback
• Capitalise on the potential of students to help
one another
Discussion
In your teams
• Consider the extent to which existing
assessment is focused on programme
outcomes
• Consider what challenges are posed by the
increasingly diverse student body
• Describe the challenges
you face with this and
write them down
Task 1 (10 mins)
Setting
Identifying
Envisioning
Planning
Objectives
Priorities
a strategy
Concrete
action
• Working in your teams,
• Look at the challenges that you have discussed this morning
Select one, maximum two, of the
challenges.
Create an objective in tackling
this challenge.
Write the objective on your
sheet.
Be prepared to share your
objective/s in the large group
Task 2: Read the front of the cards
(10 minutes)
• Look only, for now, on the √ side of each card with
the titles on.
Read the principles on the
front of the cards, choosing
those that are appropriate
to address your objective/s.
Task 3: Map selected cards to the
timeline
(15 minutes)
‘Storyboard’ your plans,
mapping selected cards to the
learner timeline (e.g. at
induction phase, during first
few weeks, mid-semester).
You can place the same cards in
more than one position on the
timeline
Task 4: Read Examples on the back of
cards
(15 minutes)
turn the cards over to
display relevant examples
and implementation ideas
on the back of the cards
Task 5: Choose relevant examples
(15 minutes)
select any examples that
would fit/support your
objective
If time is short, only turn
over the most important
selected cards
Task 6: Review ideas and write plan
minutes)
discuss and elaborate on your
plans across the timeline
Use the blank implementation
cards for extra ideas
Review your plans
Agree on and record any final
reflections and action points to
take forward
(15
Conclusion
Developing assessment can help:
- Balance the different purposes of assessment;
- Make assessment more valid for a 21st century
curriculum;
- Encourage and reward student engagement;
- Ensure that students’ study efforts are directed
towards meaningful, programme level, learning;
- Support the retention and achievement of
diverse learners;
References
Anderson, L.W. (2003) Classroom Assessment: Enhancing the Quality of Teacher Decision
Making. Mahwah, N.J. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Bloxham, S (2014) Assessing assessment (case study by Georgia Prescott), in H. Fry et al (Eds) A
handbook for teaching and learning in higher education (4th Edn) London: Routledge.
Nicol, D (2009) Assessment for learner self-regulation: enhancing achievement in the first year
using learning technologies Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, Vol. 34, No. 3,
June 2009, 335–352
Sambell, K (2010) Enquiry-based learning and formative assessment environments: student
perspectives, Practitioner Research in Higher Education, Vol 4, No 1 (2010), p52-61
Parker. J (2003) The Patchwork text in Greek tragedy. Innovations in Education & Teaching
International ,, Vol. 40 Issue 2, p180, 14p,
QAA (2013) The Quality Code, Chapter B6 http://www.qaa.ac.uk/publications/information-andguidance/uk-quality-code-for-higher-education-chapter-b6-assessment-of-students-and-therecognition-of-prior-learning1#.Vid-GuRwb4g
Wagner, T. (2008) The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don’t Teach The
New Survival Skills Our Children Need—And What We Can We Do About It Basic Books.
Winter, R., J Parker, and P Ovens (Eds.): The Patchwork Text: A Radical Re-assessment of
Coursework Assignments, a ‘Special Issue’ of Innovations in Education and Teaching
International, Vol. 30, No.2, May 2003.
Yorke, M. & Knight, P. (2004) Embedding employability into the curriculum. Higher Education
Academy
General texts on assessment
design
• Bloxham, S & Boyd, P (2007) Developing assessment in Higher
Education: a practical guide, Maidenhead, Open University Press
(course reader)..
• Bryan, C. & Clegg, K (2006) Innovative assessment in Higher
Education. London: Routledge.
• Merry, S., Price, M., Carless, D & Tara, M. (2013) Reconceptualising
Feedback in Higher Education. London: Routledge.
• Price, M., Rust, C., O’Donovan, B & Handley, K (2012) Asssessment
Literacy: The foundation for improving student learning. Cambridge:
ASKE.
• Sambell, K., McDowell, L & Montgomery, C (2013) Assessment for
Learning in Higher Education, London: Routledge