This is the peer-reviewed article form of my assessment literacy slide show. This article was recently published in the Spring, 2009 edition of OnCUE, a peer-reviewed journal published in Japan for college and university educators. A Japanese translation of the abstract is provided at the beginning.
Moving Beyond Student Ratings to Evaluate TeachingVicki L. Wise
Evidence of teaching quality needs to take into account multiple sources, as teaching is multidimensional. Moreover, the likelihood of obtaining reliable and valid data and making appropriate judgments are increased with more evidence.
Evaluating Teaching in Higher EducationEmma Kennedy
This powerpoint is taken from a workshop for university teachers on the basics of evaluation, including its advantages and disadvantages, and how to best use evaluation as a tool for improving the student experience in higher education.
The challenges of Assessment and Feedback: findings from an HEA projectDenise Whitelock
The challenges of Assessment and Feedback: findings from an HEA project – Denise Whitelock (IET)
This project was undertaken by IET and colleagues from the University of Southampton and is just producing its final report. The project's aim was to produce a synthesis of evidence based research which throws light on the progress made in the practice of Assessment and Feedback in H.E. This presentation will highlight findings with respect to authentic assessment, e-portfolios, peer assessment, feedback for language learning and Advice for Action.
This is the peer-reviewed article form of my assessment literacy slide show. This article was recently published in the Spring, 2009 edition of OnCUE, a peer-reviewed journal published in Japan for college and university educators. A Japanese translation of the abstract is provided at the beginning.
Moving Beyond Student Ratings to Evaluate TeachingVicki L. Wise
Evidence of teaching quality needs to take into account multiple sources, as teaching is multidimensional. Moreover, the likelihood of obtaining reliable and valid data and making appropriate judgments are increased with more evidence.
Evaluating Teaching in Higher EducationEmma Kennedy
This powerpoint is taken from a workshop for university teachers on the basics of evaluation, including its advantages and disadvantages, and how to best use evaluation as a tool for improving the student experience in higher education.
The challenges of Assessment and Feedback: findings from an HEA projectDenise Whitelock
The challenges of Assessment and Feedback: findings from an HEA project – Denise Whitelock (IET)
This project was undertaken by IET and colleagues from the University of Southampton and is just producing its final report. The project's aim was to produce a synthesis of evidence based research which throws light on the progress made in the practice of Assessment and Feedback in H.E. This presentation will highlight findings with respect to authentic assessment, e-portfolios, peer assessment, feedback for language learning and Advice for Action.
Assessment plays an important role in the teaching-learning process. Some of the important types of assessment are
Practice-based assessment
Evidence-based assessment
Performance-based assessment
Examination based assessment
Features of Classroom Formative AssessmentCarlo Magno
The present report addresses the need to describe and explain the important features of formative assessment when used with instruction. There are nine principles that explain both theory and practice in the conduct of formative assessment inside the classroom. These nine principles serve as a set of expectations to help teachers ascertain better practice of formative assessment when teaching. These nine principles include: (1) Formative assessment works along with the perspectives of assessment “for” and “as” learning; (2) Formative assessment is embedded with instruction; (3) Helping the students focus on the learning goal; (4) Diagnostic assessment on the target competency serves the function of formative assessment; (5) Formative assessment moves from determining discreet skills to integrated skills; (6) Using continuous and multiple forms of assessment; (7) Feedback practices using assessment results; (8) Working out with students to reach the learning goal; and (9) Deciding to move instruction to the next competency.
A review of School-Based Assessment (SBA) practiced in countries like Hong Kong, Australia, Nigeria etc. Articles are from the Web of Science between 2007-2012.
Improving Student Learning: Assessment, Evaluation and Reporting in the ELA C...Ashley Windsor
This presentation explains the differences between the three types of assessment (as, of and for learning) and when they should be used. Linking to Backward Design principles, this presentation will help new teachers to understand the planning process better. It also provides examples of best practices and strategies for use in the ELA classroom.
What is good assessment? It should be fair, reliable, reproducible, it should also provide learners with a good opportunity to demonstrate their learning, and also dissuade them from plagiarism.
Ann Wilson presents a strategy for developing good assessment across a course or programme and identify the assessment strategies used in courses and what the opportunities are for improvement. By the end of the session you will be able to identify the components of a good assessment strategy and have some useful ideas for improving your own assessments.
DU CTLAT Presentation Assessing Student Learning Outcomes Educational Program...Dillard University Library
Articulate the genesis of development of a culture of assessment; Identifies the components of institutional effectiveness emanating from a system of data sharing and program improvement; Distinguish the purpose and verbage of a program, course, and student learning outcome
Assessment plays an important role in the teaching-learning process. Some of the important types of assessment are
Practice-based assessment
Evidence-based assessment
Performance-based assessment
Examination based assessment
Features of Classroom Formative AssessmentCarlo Magno
The present report addresses the need to describe and explain the important features of formative assessment when used with instruction. There are nine principles that explain both theory and practice in the conduct of formative assessment inside the classroom. These nine principles serve as a set of expectations to help teachers ascertain better practice of formative assessment when teaching. These nine principles include: (1) Formative assessment works along with the perspectives of assessment “for” and “as” learning; (2) Formative assessment is embedded with instruction; (3) Helping the students focus on the learning goal; (4) Diagnostic assessment on the target competency serves the function of formative assessment; (5) Formative assessment moves from determining discreet skills to integrated skills; (6) Using continuous and multiple forms of assessment; (7) Feedback practices using assessment results; (8) Working out with students to reach the learning goal; and (9) Deciding to move instruction to the next competency.
A review of School-Based Assessment (SBA) practiced in countries like Hong Kong, Australia, Nigeria etc. Articles are from the Web of Science between 2007-2012.
Improving Student Learning: Assessment, Evaluation and Reporting in the ELA C...Ashley Windsor
This presentation explains the differences between the three types of assessment (as, of and for learning) and when they should be used. Linking to Backward Design principles, this presentation will help new teachers to understand the planning process better. It also provides examples of best practices and strategies for use in the ELA classroom.
What is good assessment? It should be fair, reliable, reproducible, it should also provide learners with a good opportunity to demonstrate their learning, and also dissuade them from plagiarism.
Ann Wilson presents a strategy for developing good assessment across a course or programme and identify the assessment strategies used in courses and what the opportunities are for improvement. By the end of the session you will be able to identify the components of a good assessment strategy and have some useful ideas for improving your own assessments.
DU CTLAT Presentation Assessing Student Learning Outcomes Educational Program...Dillard University Library
Articulate the genesis of development of a culture of assessment; Identifies the components of institutional effectiveness emanating from a system of data sharing and program improvement; Distinguish the purpose and verbage of a program, course, and student learning outcome
QAA Modelling and Managing Student Satisfaction: Use of student feedback to ...Bart Rienties
To what extent are institutions using insights from NSS and institutional surveys to transform their students’ experience?
What are the key enablers and barriers for integrating student satisfaction data with QA and QE
How are student experiences influencing quality enhancements
What influences students’ perceptions of overall satisfaction the most? Are student characteristics or module/presentation related factors more predictive than satisfaction with other aspects of their learning experience?
Is the student cohort homogenous when considering satisfaction key drivers? For example are there systematic differences depending on the level or programme of study?
Teachinglearningtechniquesforeffectiveoutcomebasededucation 190313045402Aravindharamanan S
Outcome-based education is a model of education that rejects the traditional focus on what the school provides to students, in favor of making students demonstrate that they "know and are able to do" whatever the required outcomes are. OBE reforms emphasize setting clear standards for observable, measurable outcomes.
Three phases of college instruction. The pre-engagement phase. Countdown to course start. The engagement phase. The post-engagement phase. Phases of college instruction. Conceptualization. Relevance to the teaching-learning effort. Adult education perspective on activities. Educational psychology perspective on activities. Further research needed.
The six levels were: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. (The taxonomy's levels were later revised as remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, revising, and creating.)
Overall, assessments are used either as a Programmatic Assessment or as a Learning Assessment. One of the most familiar learning assessments is the multiple choice assessment that reflects the typical pen and paper traditional classroom test (Popham, 2006). However, these tests are not very easy to construct to ensure validity due to unclear directions, ambiguous statements, unintended clues, complicated syntax and difficult vocabulary (Popham, 2006). Other learning assessments with construct validity, such as the essay and the reflective journal, tend to focus on student-centered pedagogy. These assessments are ideal for assessing the learning outcomes of the individual and increase the student’s personal responsibility for their own learning. This reading document provides a brief summary of assessment tools that are available for both programmatic and learning.
Uptown School is an authorised International Baccalureate (IB) Primary Years School and PYP IB World School. Uptown School is in the candidacy process for its IB Middle Years Programme, with the IB Diploma Program to follow.
Uptown delivers the IB curriculum to grades Pre-K (3 by September 15) to Grade 10 starting in September 2014 with Grades 11 and 12 to be added in 2015 and 2016.
Beyond Access and Skills: From Moodle Evaluation to Digital Literacies in Sit...mdxaltc
A presentation given by Tarek Zoubir, Phil Barter and Kirsteen Macdonald at the Academic Practice and Technology Conference 2015 themed 'Flipping the Institution: Higher Education in the Post Digital Age' co-hosted by the University of Greenwich and the London School of Economics.
Dr Carole Davis et al present how Graduate Academic Assistants are altering the learning experience of Education Studies with students through assessment literacy
What makes good feedback good? - Prof. Margaret Price
Assessment literacy
1. Can assessment literacy be enhanced and does it lead
to improved student performance?
A case study of year one Business and Management
students at Middlesex University Business School
by Simon Roberts
Karim Qizalbash
Ana Marinica
2. Introduction
* Context for the study
* Course Design
* Evaluation Through an Assessment
Literacy lens
Assessment
Assessment Literacy
Why is assessment literacy important
Activity
A Business School Case Study
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Session Overview
3. • Business School initiative to address the issue of lower than
expected recruitment target
• MBS0111 – Preparing for Business
• 12 week programme – 12 h/week
• 6h of Business Studies
• 6h of Academic Skills development
• The team: Business School Academics from LWO , LDU and a GTA
Context For The Study
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4. • Rationale to mirror loosely what would come
• Workshops in lecture - seminar style
• Introduction to assessment likely to be experienced in year 1
with the addition of a reflection
• Introduction to both group work and individual assignments
• Support provided in parallel to be outlined by Karim
Course Design
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5. Evaluation Through an Assessment Literacy lens
• Focus on preparing students for University studies
• Introducing them to different forms of assessment
• Providing them with experience of a variety of assessments
• Providing them with support and formative feedback
• Alignment of the assessments to what would follow ?
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6. Assessment
• Brown and Knight (1994, p.7) state that ‘assessment defines what
the student regards as important, how they spend their time [..],
see themselves as students and then as graduates.
• A key issue in assessment is that students often do not
understand what is a better piece of work and do not understand
what is being asked of them particularly in terms of standards and
criteria.
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(O’Donovan et al., 2001)
7. Assessment for learning
• engaging, meaningful assessment tasks; in line with the
learning outcomes of the module
• students developing as learners – effective attributes and skills
to self-assess and evaluate their own learning
• informal feedback (e.g. in-class group discussions, peer-review)
• formal feedback (a range of forms of feedback, used at a
number of stages)
• opportunities to learn and practice assessments
• formative and summative – appropriate balancing of these two
types of assessment
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(Sambell et al, 2013)
8. Assessment Literacy
‘Literacy’ as a term:
• traditionally utilised in the context of skills
• at times referred to in terms of attributes such as confidence,
competence and fluency
• can also be seen as a threshold to further learning, deeper
understanding and engagement
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(Price et al, 2012)
9. • refers to a student understanding and becoming fluent in
assessment terms
• encompasses an appreciation of an assessment’s relationship to
learning, understanding of assessment and feedback practices,
as well as terminology used, the type, meaning and level of
assessment criteria and standards
• equips one with an appreciation of the purpose and process of
assessment which enables one to engage deeply with
assessment standards to make a choice of which skill or area of
knowledge to apply and appreciate the appropriateness of each
to a specific task
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Assessment Literacy cont’d
(Price et al, 2012)
10. Assessment Literacy cont’d
• assessment literates know the difference between sound and
unsound assessments. They are not intimidated by the
sometimes mysterious and always daunting technical world of
assessment.
• when assessment literate student undertake an assessment or
task they will already be familiar with the appropriate
assessment standards they do not discover the standard
through doing the task
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(Stiggins, 1995)
(Price et al, 2012)
12. • the transition period has a major impact on student retention
• in the UK, for instance, about two-thirds of withdrawals happen during or at
the end of the first year
• a student population with diverse entry qualifications, abilities and learning
experiences
• traditional expectations towards students have not changed: they are to
manage their learning and acquire academic literacy independently
• under the pressure of league tables, students in secondary schools ‘tend to be
“spoon-fed” for longer, and are less equipped with “self-learning skills” ’
• the lack of preparation for and understanding of the type of learning that is
required makes it difficult for students to adjust to university life
(Drew, 2001; Gamache, 2002)
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Why is Assessment Literacy important and why is it especially
important for first year undergraduates?
(Yorke, 2001)
(Wingate, 2007)
(National Audit Office, 2002, p. 15)
13. Activity
• Take 2 minutes to make notes with regard to the task below
• Share any key points with the audience
In what ways do you believe your current practice already
incorporates elements to facilitate students’ development of
assessment literacy?
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14. | 14
• improvement in students’ assessed performance
• the more students know what is expected of them in
assessments the more effectively they will be able to meet those
requirements
• students are keen to know how to improve due to the fact that
assessment is a dominant influence on their learning
Why Assessment Literacy?
(Price et al, 2010)
16. • My background – ELT & Applied Linguistics
• My initial aims for the Enhanced students – to be the bearer of
knowledge, while strengthening their academic skills and abilities.
• The Cohort – 2 X ~45 students 80% young males:
- reluctance
- resentment
• The 1st week.
• Some student comments:
“why do I have to do this course!”
“what’s the point of this?”
“how is this going to help me!”
Aims reworked – make everything relevant to the students’ assessment.
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17. Types of Assessment & My Intervention 1
1. Essay (Report) please refer to the marking criteria - ESSAY
1st draft – feedback via 1-2-1 tutorial and annotated essay
• Some areas covered
- Academic writing conventions e.g. Referencing/citations, thesis
statements & paraphrasing
- Criticality
- Discursive vs Descriptive writing
• Instruction given by means of:
- general teacher-led instruction in seminar and/or lecture format
- Individual / group tasks
- Peer review
= “Dominant Logic” Explicit Model
+ The Social Constructivist Model
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18. Types of Assessment & My Intervention 2
2. Presentation please refer to the marking criteria - PRESENTATION
Practice presentation - feedback – final presentation
• Some areas covered:
- Formulaic language
- Formality / Style / Register
• Instruction given by means of:
- Individual / group exercises
- general teacher-led instruction in seminar and/or lecture
format
= “Dominant Logic” Explicit Model
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19. The Cultivated Community of Practice Model
Not desirable!
– too early in UG course for this approach
– even in some cases of using the Social Constructivist Model type tasks
students would imply that I was unprepared for the class or was being
“lazy” by getting the students to do the assessing
• The benefits of Assessment Literacy may not, however, be immediately
obvious to authority-dependent students who are motivated by certainty
and believe it is the duty of infallible assessors to ‘correct’ student work
• Indeed, assessment illiterate students may simply consider less authority -
dependant assessment processes (such as peer review and peer
assessment) ingenious ways for lazy tutors to shirk their marking
responsibilities.
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(Baxter Magold,1992; King & Kitchener, 2004 in Price et al, 2012)
(Price et al, 2012)
20. • Quantitative
• Comparison of means regarding enhanced vs. Jan start
cohort:
– Grades individual assessments and overall grades
– Self efficacy scores
• Regressions regarding grades self efficacy at end of year 1
• Qualitative
• Focus groups (data yet to be analysed)
Methods of evaluation
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21. Findings
• Grades of enhanced students were slightly lower across all
assessments and many were found to be statistically significant;
with the exception of all assessment in HRM1004
• From a cross tabulation no differences were found with regard
to the pass/fail ratio across the two groups with the exception of
MSO
• No statistically significant differences found with regard to
‘Understanding the requirements of different assessments’; in
fact scores of the Enhanced students were higher that January
starts in all instances but not statistically significant
• With regard to confidence levels there were only significantly
significant differences in the case of report writing and again
those of the Enhanced students were higher
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22. Findings cont’d
From the regression analysis not many models were found, however:
• Understanding the requirements of writing an essay explained 13% of the
variance of the HRM essay grade and 30% of the essay grade within the
Enhanced students sample; no relationship was found regarding the January
start students
• For all students the confidence in doing online tests explained 6.6% of the
variance of the HRM online test grade
• Understanding the requirement of online tests explains 8.3% of the variance for
enhanced students’ grades; no model for Jan start students
• Confidence in doing online tests explains 4% of the variance in MSO Test1 grade
for the all students sample; 10% of the variance in MSO Test 1 grade for the
enhanced students sample
• Confidence in doing online tests predicts 4% of MSO test 2 grade for the all
students sample
• Interestingly, understanding the requirement of online tests predicts 11% of
Accounting and Finance test grade for the Jan start sample
No other models found
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23. Discussion of findings
• The groups were compared due to convenience and an
assumed difference in entry points (MBS 180-220 pts and
January Start 240+ pts; this could not be verified yet)
• Results indicate that January start students appear to be out
performing their Enhanced cohort counterparts although not
significantly in the case of HRM1004
Why?
• Enhanced students had perceived higher clarity of the
requirements of each assessment and were slightly more
confident than their January start counterparts.
• The regression models indicate that there was a relationship
between awareness and performance of the Enhanced
students, especially in the case of the HRM1004 Essay
• 30% of the variance explained
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24. Conclusions and lessons learnt
• We don’t know whether this was down to the intervention or not,
therefore pre and post interventions are required
• What is students’ understanding of the requirements of different forms
of assessments
• Better matching and alignment of assessments could lead to better
outcomes; is assessment literacy tied to subject discipline or is it
transferable?
• What can be done differently
• the team is now made up of academics across all the departments,
therefore provision of subject based criteria for assessments
• Is there a longer term impact, how do year two grades compare across
the two cohorts?
• Can staff be developed to ensure clarity of criteria in a relatively
consistent manner across and within subject disciplines?
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25. References
Brown, S. and Knight, P. (1994). Assessing learners in higher education. London: Kogan Page.
Drew, S. (2001). Student Perceptions of What Helps Them Learn and Develop in Higher Education.
Teaching in Higher Education. 6(3), pp. 309–331.
Stiggins, R. (1995). Assessment literacy for the 21st century. Phi Delta Kappan.
Price, M., Rust, C., O’Donovan, B., Handley, K. and Bryant, R. (2012). Assessment Literacy: The
Foundation for Improving Student Learning. Oxford: Oxford Brookes University.
The Higher Education Academy. (2012). A Marked Improvement Transforming Assessment in Higher
Education. [online]. Available at:
https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/sites/default/files/A_Marked_Improvement.pdf. [Accessed 1 July 2015].
Yorke, M. (2001). Formative Assessment and Its Relevance in Retention. Higher Education Research and
Development. 20 (2), pp. 115–123.
Wingate, U. (2007). 'A Framework for Transition: Supporting ‘Learning to Learn’ in Higher
Education‘. Higher Education Quarterly. 61(3), pp. 391-405. [online]. Education Research Complete.
Available at: http://rt5vx6na7p.scholar.serialssolutions.com. [Accessed 1 July 2015].
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