1. Assessment
Phil Carey
Faculty of Health and Applied Social Sciences
Clare Milsom
Academic Enhancement Unit

2. What is assessment for?
• Reflecting knowledge
• Demonstrating skills
• Personal development
• Rite of passage
• Differentiating between students
• Maintaining standards

3. Theoretical/philosophical basis of
assessment?
function perspective
Reflecting knowledge Functionalism
Demonstrating skills Instrumentalism
Personal development Humanism
Rite of passage Social learning
Differentiating between Cultural capital
students
Maintaining standards Neo-liberalism

4. Assessment as a system
• External factors
– Professional/disciplinary expectations
– Culture
• Institutional factors
– Resources
– Regulations
• Course-based factors
– Team culture
– Curriculum design
– Procedures
• Module factors
– Module design

5. What do tutors bring?
• Values/beliefs about assessment
• Personal experiences – as assessor and as
student
• Awareness of good practice and methods
• Time …to set the task…to mark…to feedback

6. What do students bring?
• Cultural background and personal
circumstances
• Perceptions…of task and of tutor
• Prior experiences
• Approach to study
• Time …to understand the task…to complete
the task…to engage with feedback

7. What do ‘institutions’ bring?
• Community of practice
• Policy and regulation
• Quality assurance and enhancement
processes
• Guidance and support
• Staff development
• Reward and recognition
• Resources – personnel, time, technology

8. Types of assessment
http://www.qaa.ac.uk/Publications/InformationAndGuidance/Documents/understanding-
assessment-second-edition.pdf
• Diagnostic
• Formative
• Summative
DON’T FORGET….feedback

9. Why is assessment so important?
1. Assessment has a major influence on:
what students learn
how we teach
how students organise their studies
how individuals are able to progress
2. Staff and students spend more time on assessment than on anything else
“Assessment IS the curriculum as far as many students are concerned – they’ll
learn what they think they’ll be assessed on, not what’s in the curriculum or
what’s been covered in class” Ramsden (1992)

10. Teaching teaching and understanding understanding
19-minute award-winning short-film about teaching at University: (((
http://www.daimi.au.dk/~brabrand/short-film/ )))
Students take
responsibility for
their learning. ‘Deep’
rather than ‘surface
approach’

11. Course content Assessment
Teaching methods Study approach
Assessment

12. Constructive alignment (Biggs 1999)
Learner constructs their own learning through learning activities
Teaching and Assessment
learning methods
activities Intended
Designed to learning Designed to
meet outcomes assess
learning learning
outcomes outcomes
How will they learn? What do we want our How will we know the
students to know? students have learnt?
‘High levels of detail of learning outcomes and assessment criteria, allow students to
identify what they ought to pay attention to, but also what they can safely ignore’.
(Gibbs 2010: 25)

13. Structure of the Observed Learning
Outcomes (Biggs and Collis 1982)
SOLO taxonomy
Surface understanding Deep understanding

14. Bloom’s revised
taxonomy
(Anderson and
Krathwohl 2001)

15. Level Bloom Solo Verb
[knowledge] [learning]
6/7 Creating
Extended
Design, hypothesise, construct, reflect
6/7 abstract
Evaluating
5/6 Analysing
Relational Apply, compare, analyse, debate
5/6 Applying
3/4 Understanding Multistructural Classify, illustrate, report,
3/4 Remembering Unistructural Identify, name, define, label, write
All learning outcomes include:
Verb, content, context

16. What’s wrong here?
1. Identify the key constitutional structures of the
European Union and critically analyse the origins
and effects of these structures by using the
conceptual tools of comparative politics.
2. Recall the fundamental principles of structural,
mechanical and electrical engineering.
3. Write a report on the decontamination of
reclaimed land.
4. Explore global provision of emergency
healthcare
5. State the six categories of Bloom’s taxonomy.