Key concepts in assessment

Joughin (2009) defines assessment as “[making] judgments about students’ work, inferring from this what they have the capacity to do in the assessed domain, and thus what they know, value, or are capable of doing” (p. 16). Assessment is an integral component of the student learning experience, and Ramsden (2003) asserts that “from our students’ point of view, assessment always defines the actual curriculum” (p. 82).

We often default to thinking of assessment as tasks, such as essays or exams, which are assessed by teachers. However, assessment occurs any time someone makes a judgement about what they or someone else has done in a particular domain. Assessment thus includes moments when students come to understand what they are capable of based on their work (self-assessment), as well as students judging their classmates (peer assessment). Assessment need not involve marks, grades or teachers.

The purposes of assessment

The purposes of assessment are:

to guide students through learning tasks (sometimes called formative assessment or assessment for learning);
to determine how well students have met relevant standards and criteria (sometimes called assessment of learning, or assessment for certification); and
to support students in developing the ability to make judgements about the quality of their work and the work of others (sometimes called sustainable assessment).

Part of the assessment designer’s task is to determine which of these purposes will be most important for a given task. Not all tasks will attend to each purpose equally. For example, the first assignment in a unit will often focus on assessment’s learning purpose, by guiding students through a series of tasks that will prepare them for later work. When units have final exams, these typically focus on an assessment’s certification purpose. If you are working with someone else’s design, such as a task a unit coordinator has set, it may be worthwhile to ask 'What is the purpose of this task?'.

Assessment drives student learning

The literature consistently argues that students will learn what they think will be assessed (Biggs, 2003). “Students can, with difficulty, escape from the effects of poor teaching, they cannot (by definition if they want to graduate) escape the effects of poor assessment” (Boud, 1995, p. 35). Ideally, assessments should compel students towards a deep learning approach, however there is limited research to show which assessments are more likely to drive deep learning for all student learners (Joughin, 2009). In your experience, how does assessment influence students’ approaches to learning?

It is generally accepted that the key to designing good assessments is to engage the students in the task by making it relevant, challenging, and where possible, authentic in accordance with the discipline and program learning outcomes. It is useful to consider how your unit assessment tasks help your students achieve your course learning outcomes. Case studies of assessment from a variety of discipline areas are included in the Useful tips and case studies section at the end of this module.

Assessment moderation

The role of all teachers involved in assessment is to ensure the assessment process is fair and consistent. This means that:

students are treated fairly (without favouritism or discrimination);
the marking process is fair and consistent (i.e. the same mark is assigned at different times by the same marker or by different markers); and
no student is advantaged or disadvantaged (e.g. in the provision of support or feedback).

These processes are achieved by good assessment design and moderation processes. Moderation strategies are activities that occur throughout the entire assessment process, including in the design, marking and analysis of results phases. Moderation strategies will be highlighted later in this module.