Session 3: Assessment and Feedback

Session 3: Using assessment and feedback to support student learning

There is now overwhelming evidence to suggest that students make decisions about their learning based on their perceptions and experiences of the assessment (Ramsden, 2003; Gibbs & Simpson, 2005). In fact, it is assessment that drives students’ decisions about their learning, rather than the teacher. This implies that the assessment strategy in a subject can influence the way students go about their learning, and even change their approach to learning. Because there is a lot riding on assessment (and its twin, feedback), it is important to ensure that the approaches, methods and techniques we choose are scholarly and based in evidence. It is also important that the assessment provides students with the best opportunity to demonstrate their learning. It also means tackling some quite difficult questions: what view of learning underpins an approach to assessment? Is the way you assess in your subject based primarily on habit and ritual or evidence about improving student learning? Is it important to know (and care) about how students perceive the assessment? How much flexibility and negotiation is available in designing assessment? Might we allow students to design their own assessment activities as a way of supporting their curiosity, motivation and energy for learning in your subject?

This session is focused on the idea that assessment is most effective when it supports student learning. With this in mind, you will have an opportunity to consider your own views of assessment and to identify the source of those views. Drawing on Gibbs and Simpson’s (2005) meta-study which proposes 10 conditions that support assessment for student learning (7 conditions are focused on feedback), you will consider the assessment strategy in one of your subjects and identify how it supports student learning. You will have an opportunity to consider the value of grade descriptors, criteria and standards as aids to support student learning. You will also have a chance to engage with a series good practice vignettes taken from a faculty wide project funded through the Learning and Teaching Performance Fund (LTPF) Feedback: analysis, comparison and good practice and to consider how you might revise, add to or change aspects of the assessment strategy in your subject.