1. New Mexico Higher Education
Assessment and Retention
Conference
Albuquerque, New Mexico
March 1, 2013
2. Involving students in the assessment
process: Exploring students’ meanings of
the learning experience.
Mariam Abdelmalak
Doctoral Candidate,
Curriculum & Instruction
department, College of
Education, New Mexico State
University-Las Cruces
3. Theoretical Background:
• Critical pedagogy:
• Paulo Freire (1993): “Banking” approach;
student-teacher partnership
• Ira Shor (1992; 1996): Mutual faculty-student
authority
• Stanley Aronowitz (1993): Student control
4. Theoretical Background:
• Faculty/students collaboration in a way that gives
students some control over their learning (Dewey,
1938; Heron, 1979; Boud & Prosser, 1980; Freire, 1993;
Shor, 1992; 1996; Manor, Bloch-Schulman, Flannery &
Felten, 2010)
• Faculty absolute power to make of the important
decisions about learning for students is framed as an
obstacle to students’ learning (Shor, 1992; 1996;
Kresiberg, 1992; Weimer, 2002; Manor, Bloch-
Schulman, Flannery & Felten, 2010).
5. Theoretical Background:
– The instructor has a majority of power to make decisions
– Students as powerless in their own education (Shor, 1992; 1996;
Manor, Bloch-Schulman, Flannery & Felten, 2010)
– Students’ lack of taking responsibility for their education
(Weimer, 2002; Manor et al., 2010)
– Passively affects students’ motivation, interest, confidence,
enthusiasm for learning, and their ability to think independently
(Charles, 1992; Shor, 1992, Kresiberg, 1992; Weimer, 2002)
6. Theoretical Background:
• Assessment is the most political of all educational
processes; it is where issues of power are most at
stake. If there is no staff/student collaboration in
assessment, then staff exert a stranglehold that
inhibits the development of collaboration with
respect to all other processes. (Heron, 1979, p. 13)
7. Theoretical Background:
• Boud and Prosser (1980): faculty/students
collaboration in the assessment process:
Move assessment from “one way-of students
by staff” (p. 24) to a cooperative relation in
which assessment is “jointly owned by both
staff and students” (Boud & Prosser, 1980, p.
26).
• Recently, (Falchikov, 2003; 2005): involving
students as partners in the assessment
process.
8. Purpose:
The purpose of this case study was to answer
the following questions:
1)What are the meanings that students
construct from the learning experience of the
collaborative design of course assignments?
2)What are the meanings that students
construct from the learning experience of a
peer review?
9. Method:
• Multiple Case Studies.
• Data Gathering Methods:
Observation: a graduate education course
for 2:30 hours per week for one semester
(15 weeks)
Students’ interview (6 graduate students)
Analyzing students’ course work and course
syllabus.
• Comparative Analysis
19. Students’ Meanings of Collaborative Design of
Course Assignments:
• Student Control:
If you are setting goals for yourself and how you are
going to achieve them, you are having more control over
your learning process because you know what is going
on. You are more in control on what is happening.
(Sonia)
It gives you control and say over what needs to be
done, as oppose to somebody says: this is what you
have to do in order to get grades in the class. I created
assignments that could help me to focus more in my
dissertation and help me to move forward in my
program. (Tina)
20. • Student control and motivation:
That [control] is very important for me. It makes me
involved with the materials. I have to have that kind of
mental involvement with what I am learning, so I can
retain it. (Sonia)
Being able to come up with the assignments allows us to
have control of the class. I believe giving some control of
the class to the students makes us interested to get
more out of it. (Sammy)
21. • Student control and taking responsibility:
Control gives us the buy in, the responsibility,
accountability. It makes you accountable for learning
that assignment and for the class. (Tina)
I took responsibility for my own learning. I wrote chapter
3, the entire chapter 3. I spent hours and hours doing it,
even I was not sure what I was doing but I made chapter
3 with totally references because that was what I
wanted. (Sara)
22. • Motivation:
To be able to create the assignments, you could
personalize it more to meet your needs and what you
are researching and what you are doing on the
dissertation, which is a motivating thing, like: I want to
do this because it is something I am interested in. I am
more motivated to learn when it is something I like to
do, instead to just to be told what to do. (Sammy)
That allowed me to choose something meaningful to me
and my dissertation. I think I can do a better job than
just turning something because I have to. If I believe on
the importance of the assignment to me, then I will have
patience in learning, rather than just filling out the
requirements, the minimum requirements. (Antony)
23. • The instructor as a facilitator:
She facilitated a long the way. She did not say like: here
you go, you design it, you put it together, you go, see
you later. Rather she says like: you may think about this
think about that. She was not totally out of it. She is
kind of guiding us without actually telling what to do.
(Sammy)
She told us to select whatever we wanted to do, but she
was still guiding us in some ways like: do you want to
read something, do you want a lecture. She wanted to
make sure that we had the readings, the lecture, and we
have some activities. I like that because if she did not
ask us to read, I do not like to read, so I will do whatever
I want. (Antony)
25. A Peer Review:
• Enhance Learning through reading each other
paper:
I do benefit from reading other people’s work,
seeing how they organize and format their
writing. I think the more you read, the more you
see how papers are put together, the more you
learn. (Tina)
26. Peer Feedback:
• Constructive Feedback
A peer review is a peer review where I get
feedback on the content to improve my paper. It
is not just using the rubric and grade the paper.
(Sara)
27. Peer Feedback:
• Perceived Expertise
I do not care for a peer review because
sometimes you do not value that opinion from a
particular peer, and sometimes peers reviewing it
do not know the topic. To me that is not
beneficial. (Karl)
28. Peer Feedback:
• Power Relations
They are friends of mine so it is hard to critique
them. They are classmates in the same program I
am going through. Who I am to critique them. I
am a student like them. I feel bad when I critique
someone. I want everybody to succeed so I do
not want to critique them. I gave them 4, 4, 4
because I want them to succeed. (Karl)
29. Peer Feedback
• Lack of Subject Knowledge:
They are more advanced than me in the doctoral
program, so they know more about what it needs
than me, how can I tell them, you are missing this
or missing that? so I did not have the knowledge
to make their papers better. (Antony)
30. Conditioned that instructors have
absolute power:
Just to show you how conditioned we are as students,
we are conditioned to instructors do that because they
have the power in the class and students do not have
the power to make those decisions. It is okay to work on
the curriculum content but when it comes to grading or
what expectations on grades in the course, no body did.
(Tina)
31. An Easy Road:
I have to be honest with that, people tend to take the
easy road. I do think people have tendency to get little
lazy with things like: if it is there we accept it instead of
making it, that is ready to go. Also we all are very busy,
so sometimes if she provides for us, we will say okay
that is fine that works. If she said like: part of your
grade, you must build your own rubric, then we will
build it. (Sammy)
32. Empowerment:
• Sometimes I had issues with correcting people who I
consider superior to me, people who had better
knowledge, more experience in the area. I am shy about
going in and saying: okay this does not work. I know I
am good at that as a secretary, but I am not good at it
as a student. (Sonia)
• It [a peer review] gives you better feel of your own
strengths and weakens. Each of us has strengths and
weakens. (Sonia)
33. Conclusion:
• This study finding suggests that the traditional
role, in which the instructor has power to make
all decisions relating to the education of
students, needs to change into a partnership.
• In this partnership, students are encouraged to
take control of their education, including some
involvement in assessment.
34. References:
• Aronowitz, S. (1993). Paulo Freire’s radical democratic humanism. In P.
Mclaren & P. Leonard (Eds.). Paulo Freire: A critical encounter (pp. 8-23). USA:
Routledge.
• Boud, D., & Prosser, M. (1980). Sharing responsibility: Staff-student
cooperation in learning. British Journal of Educational Technology, 11(1), 24-
35.
• Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. New York: Macmillan Publishing
Company.
• Falchikov, N. (2003). Involving students in assessment. Psychology Learning
and Teaching, 3(2), 102-108.
• Falchikov, N. (2005). Improving assessment through student involvement:
Practical solutions for aiding learning in higher and further education. London:
RoutledgeFalmer.
• Freire, P. (1993). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: The Continuum
International.
• Heron, J. (1979) Assessment. Working paper.
•
35. References:
• Kreisberg, S. (1992). Transforming power: Domination, empowerment, and
education. USA: State University of New York Press.
• Manor, C., Bloch-Schulman, S., Flannery, K., & Felten, P. (2010). Foundations
of student-faculty partnerships in the scholarship of teaching and learning:
Theoretical and developmental considerations. In C. Werder & M. Otis (Eds.)
Engaging student voices in the study of teaching and learning (pp. 3-15).
Sterling, VA: Stylus.
• Shor, I. (1992). When students have power: Negotiating authority in a critical
pedagogy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
• Shor, I. (1996). When students have power : negotiating authority in a critical
pedagogy. Chicago : University of Chicago Press.
• Weimer, M. (2002). Learner-centered teaching: Five key changes to practice.
San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
