1. The TESTA process: key ingredients
in its spread to over 70
programmes in more than 20
universities
Dr Tansy Jessop, Senior Fellow L&T, TESTA Project Leader
Yaz El Hakim, Director of L&T, TESTA Co-Leader
UNIVERSITY OF WINCHESTER
HEDG Spring Meeting 15 March 2013

2.  What is TESTA
 What is special about TESTA findings
 Why it has had a wide impact
 Where TESTA is operating
 How it may be useful to you
 Any questions?
Exploring what, why, where and how

3.  HEA funded research project (2009-12)
 Seven programmes in four partner universities
 Mapping programme assessment
 Engaging with Quality Assurance processes
 Diagnosis – intervention – cure
What is TESTA?
Transforming the Experience of Students through Assessment

4. TESTA
“…is a way of thinking
about assessment and
feedback”
Graham Gibbs, sailor and assessment aficionado

5.  Captures and distributes sufficient student time and
effort - time on task
 Challenging learning with clear goals and standards,
encouraging deep learning
 Sufficient, high quality feedback, received on time,
with a focus on learning
 Students pay attention to the feedback and it guides
future studies – feeding-forward
 Students are able to judge their own performance
accurately, self-regulating
Based on conditions of learning

6. TESTA Research Methods
(Drawing on Gibbs and Dunbar-Goddet, 2008,2009)
ASSESSMENT
EXPERIENCE
QUESTIONNAIRE
FOCUS GROUPS
PROGRAMME AUDIT
Programme
Team
Meeting

7.  Number of assessment tasks
 Summative/formative
 Variety
 Proportion of exams
 Oral feedback
 Written feedback
 Speed of return of feedback
 Specificity of criteria, aim and learning outcomes.
Audit in a nutshell

8.  Quantity of Effort
 Coverage of content and knowledge
 Clear goals and standards
 Quantity and Quality of Feedback
 Use of feedback
 Appropriate assessment
 Learning from exams
 Deep and surface learning
Assessment Experience
Questionnaire

9.  Student voice and narrative
 Corroboration and contradiction
 Compelling evidence with the stats
Focus Groups

10.  tells a good story
 raises a thought-provoking issue
 has elements of conflict
 promotes empathy with the central characters
 lacks an obvious, clear-cut answer
 takes a position, demands a decision &
 is relatively concise (Gross-Davis 1993)
Case Study

11.  Committed and innovative lecturers
 Lots of coursework, varied forms
 No exams
 Masses of written feedback (15,000 words)
 Learning outcomes and criteria clearly specified
….looks like a ‘model’ assessment environment
But students:
 Don’t put in a lot of effort and distribute effort across few
topics
 Don’t think there is a lot of feedback or that it very useful, and
don’t make use of it
 Don’t think it is at all clear what the goals and standards
 …are unhappy
Case Study X: what’s going on…

12. 1. Many students disregard formative tasks
2. Many students work in peaks and troughs, mainly for
summative tasks, with relatively middling effort levels
3. Giving feedback is hard work but often doesn’t
enhance the learning process
4. Many students are confused about goals and
standards
TESTA Headlines
(from 23 programmes in 8 universities)

13.  If there weren’t loads of other assessments going on I’d do it.
 I would probably work for tasks, but for a lot of people, if it’s
not going to count towards your degree, why bother?
 If there are no actual consequences of not doing it, most
students are going to sit in the bar.
 It’s good to know you’re being graded because you take it
more seriously.
 The lecturers do formative assessment but we don’t get any
feedback on it.
Formative tasks don’t ‘count’

14. We could do with more assessments over the course of the year
to make sure that people are actually doing stuff.
We get too much of this end or half way through the term essay
type things. Continual assessments would be so much better.
So you could have a great time doing nothing until like a month
before Christmas and you’d suddenly panic. I prefer steady
deadlines, there’s a gradual move forward, rather than bam!
Student effort levels

15.  It was about nine weeks… I’d forgotten what I’d written.
 The feedback is generally focused on the module.
 It’s difficult because your assignments are so detached from the
next one you do for that subject. They don’t relate to each other.
 You’ll get really detailed, really commenting feedback from one
tutor and the next tutor will just say ‘Well done’.
 Getting feedback from other students in my class helps. I can
relate to what they’re saying and take it on board. I’d just shut
down if I was getting constant feedback from my lecturer.
Feedback issues

16.  There are criteria, but I find them really strange. There’s
“writing coherently, making sure the argument that you present
is backed up with evidence”
 They have different criteria, build up their own criteria. Some of
them will mark more interested in how you word things.
 I get the impression that they don't even look at the marking
criteria. They read the essay and then they get a general
impression, then they pluck a mark from the air.
 It’s such a guessing game.... You don’t know what they expect
from you.
 I don’t have any idea of why it got that mark.
(Un)clear goals and standards

17. 1. Changes in how degree programmes design assessment
– as teams, and according to evidence and principles
2. …especially in pressing home the value of formative
processes
3. Linking up and sequencing tasks across modules
4. Meta-language with students about feedback
5. Improvements in NSS scores at Winchester (bottom to
top quartile in A&F)
6. Improvements in post-intervention TESTA process
TESTA’s impact

18.  Programmatic evidence is useful and brings the team
together
 Leader can deal with variations of standards
 The module vs greater good of the programme
 Lego piece modules vs whole thing
 Helps to confront protectionism and silos
 Develops collegiality and conversations about
pedagogy
TESTA is about the team

19. TESTA is about coherence

20.  The TESTA report back was by far the most significant meeting I have
attended in ten years of sitting through many meetings at this
university. For the first time, I felt as though I was a player on the
pitch, rather than someone watching from the side-lines. We were
discussing real issues (Senior Lecturer).
 The faculty were blown away by the TESTA findings" (Researcher).
 I had a long discussion about whether every subject should do it
before re-approval - my gut reaction is yes" (Programme Leader).
 It has got people thinking in new ways.. (Partner Project Leader).
What people say…

21. Universities using TESTA

22. www.testa.ac.uk

23. Gibbs, G. & Simpson, C. (2004) Conditions under which assessment supports students'
learning. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education. 1(1): 3-31.
Gibbs, G. & Dunbar-Goddet, H. (2009). Characterising programme-level assessment
environments that support learning. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. 34,4:
481-489.
Jessop, T, McNab, N and Gubby, L. (2012) Mind the gap: An analysis of how quality
assurance processes influence programme assessment patterns. Active Learning in
Higher Education. 13(3). 143-154.
Jessop, T., El Hakim and Gibbs (2011) Research Inspiring Change. Educational
Developments. 12(4).
Nicol, D. (2010) From monologue to dialogue: improving written feedback processes in
mass higher education, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 35: 5, 501 – 517
Nicol, D. (2012) Assessment Principles Webinar on JISC.
Sadler, D.R. (1989) Formative assessment and the design of instructional systems,
Instructional Science, 18, 119-144.
Sambell, K (2011) Rethinking Feedback in Higher Education. Higher Education Academy
Escalate Subject Centre Publication.
References