TESTA Interactive Masterclass
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This document summarizes an interactive masterclass on the TESTA (Transforming the Experience of Students Through Assessment) programme approach. The masterclass discusses the rationale for taking a programme approach to assessment, including addressing modular problems, curriculum problems, and student alienation. Methods discussed include conducting a TESTA programme audit and using an Assessment Experience Questionnaire and student focus groups to gather data. Key themes covered are high summative assessment loads, disconnected feedback between assignments, and student confusion about assessment goals and standards. Strategies presented to improve assessment include increasing formative assessment, providing more dialogic feedback, and helping students internalize assessment criteria.
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TESTA Interactive Masterclass
- 1. TESTA Interactive Masterclass Tansy Jessop Visiting Professor, BILT 25 January 2019
- 2. This session • Rationale for TESTA • Brief description of TESTA • Rationale for taking a programme approach • Methods • Themes
- 3. Why take a programme approach? 1. A modular problem 2. A curriculum problem 3. An alienation problem 4. An engagement solution
- 6. An alienation problem Image, "Alienation Nightmare" © 1996 by Sabu
- 7. Motorways to alienation • M1: Modules • M2: Markets • M3: Metrics • M4: Mass higher education
- 9. Programme approach seems to improve things 60% 65% 70% 75% 80% 85% 90% 95% Q5 Q6 Q7 Q8 Q9 OS AVERAGENSSSCORES COMPARISON OF 32 PROGS IN 13 UNIVERSITIES WITH SECTOR SCORES NSS 2015 SCORES TESTA SCORES
- 10. 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 The red line of improvement? TESTA@Solent 2017-18 NSS 17 NSS 18
- 12. Research and change process Programme Team Meeting Assessment Experience Questionnaire (AEQ) TESTA Programme Audit Student Focus Groups
- 14. TESTA definitions Summative: graded assessment which counts towards the degree Formative: Does not count: ungraded, required task with feedback
- 15. TESTA Audit: the nuts and bolts… How do I do a TESTA audit? What will the data tell me about the assessment on the programme?
- 16. Activity One: mock audit Programme Team Meeting Assessment Experience Questionnaire (AEQ) TESTA Programme Audit Student Focus Groups
- 17. The Audit: Caveats 1. Audit is not everything 2. Official discourse 3. Planned curriculum 4. Some better data, some weaker, some gaps
- 18. Mock Audit
- 19. • Some context • Number of summative • Number of formative • Varieties of assessment • Proportion of exams • Written feedback • Speed of return of feedback Summary of audit data
- 20. Assessment features across a 3 year UG degree (n=73) Characteristic Range Summative 12 -227 Formative 0 - 116 Varieties of assessment 5 - 21 Proportion of examinations 0% - 87% Time to return marks & feedback 10 - 42 days Volume of oral feedback 37 -1800 minutes Volume of written feedback 936 - 22,000 words
- 21. Typical A&F patterns 73 programmes in 14 unis (Jessop and Tomas 2017) Characteristic Low Medium High Volume of summative assessment Below 33 40-48 More than 48 Volume of formative only Below 1 5-19 More than 19 % of tasks by examinations Below 11% 22-31% More than 31% Variety of assessment methods Below 8 11-15 More than 15 Written feedback in words Less than 3,800 6,000-7,600 More than 7,600
- 22. Make sense of audit data 1) What is striking about the data? 2) What surprises or puzzles you? 3) What would you want to know more about? Each table look at: – 1 x university types OR – 1 x discipline – Briefly discuss in relation to questions
- 23. Assessment loads: how much is too much? (Tomas and Jessop 2018) Summative Exams
- 24. Characteristic Medium (Research- Intensive) Medium (Teaching Intensive) Mann- Whitney U test results Summative 41-79 (Median 50) 34-41 (Median 35) RI* Formative 1-26 (Median 3) 3-17 (Median 7) n.s. Proportion of Examinations 27-42% (Median 30%) 5-19% (Median 10%) RI* Variety assessment methods 8-10 (Median 8) 12-14 (Median 15) TI*
- 25. Theme 1: High summative with low formative • Low formative to summative ratio of 1:8 (UK, NZ, Ireland) • Summative as ‘pedagogy of control’ • Formative weakly practised and understood
- 27. A lot of people don’t do wider reading. You just focus on your essay question. In Weeks 9 to 12 there is hardly anyone in our lectures. I'd rather use those two hours of lectures to get the assignment done. It’s been non-stop assignments, and I’m now free of assignments until the exams – I’ve had to rush every piece of work I’ve done. CONSEQUENCES OF HIGH SUMMATIVE
- 28. It was really useful. We were assessed on it but we weren’t officially given a grade, but they did give us feedback on how we did. It didn’t actually count so that helped quite a lot because it was just a practice and didn’t really matter what we did and we could learn from mistakes so that was quite useful. The benefits of formative
- 29. If there weren’t loads of other assessments, I’d do it. It’s good to know you’re being graded because you take it more seriously. BUT… If there are no actual consequences of not doing it, most students are going to sit in the bar. The lecturers do formative assessment but we don’t get any feedback on it.
- 30. Formative is the hardest nut to crack… Go to www.menti.com and use the code 97 97 66 Type in three reasons why students may be reluctant to invest time and energy in completing formative assessment tasks
- 31. 1) Low-risk way of learning from feedback (Sadler, 1989) 2) Fine-tune understanding of goals (Boud 2000, Nicol 2006) 3) Feedback to lecturers to adapt teaching (Hattie, 2009) 4) Cycles of reflection and collaboration (Biggs 2003; Nicol & McFarlane Dick 2006) 5) Encourages and distributes student effort (Gibbs 2004). Yet formative is vital
- 32. How you encourage formative Go to www.menti.com and use the code 23 86 17 Choose your top three strategies for engaging students in formative assessment …Or talk to each other about successful strategies
- 33. Case Study 1 • Systematic reduction of summative across whole business school • Systematic ramping up of formative • All working to similar script • Whole department shift, experimentation, less risky together
- 34. Case Study 2 • Problem: silent seminar, students not reading • Public platform blogging • Current academic texts • In-class • Threads and live discussion • Linked to summative
- 35. Case Study 3 • Problem: lack of discrimination about sources • Students bring 1 x book, 1 x chapter, 1 x journal article, 2 x pop culture articles to seminar • Justify choices to group • Reach consensus about five best sources • Add to reading list
- 37. Case Study 5
- 38. Your task • In groups, identify five principles for making formative work. Write them down on flipchart paper. • How could you use or adapt this on your course?
- 39. Principles to encourage formative 1. Rebalance summative and formative 2. Whole programme approach 3. Link formative and summative 4. Authentic, public domain tasks 5. Creative, collaborative, challenging tasks 6. Relational and conversational feedback
- 40. Break time! Before more nuts and bolts… How does the AEQ work? What will it tell me about the programme? What will I learn about students’ views of assessment from the focus group?
- 42. Why a questionnaire about assessment? • Weaker NSS scores • Weak NSS? • Quick and big data • Quant/qualitative
- 43. AEQ 3.3 (2003) • Designed to measure ‘conditions under which assessment supports learning’ • Based on theory and evidence + selected CEQ scales • Robust enough factor structure and scale coherence – measures what it’s meant to be measuring?
- 44. AEQ 4.0 (2018) • Fill in the AEQ 4.0 from the vantage point of being a student in one of your classes • Paper or online? • https://educ.sphinxonline.net/v4/s/ha2fbs
- 45. Comparing Audit and AEQ data from one programme In pairs or groups, explore programme audit and AEQ data from one programme. Does anything stack up? Are there loose ends, questions, contradictions?
- 46. Theme 2: Disconnected feedback
- 47. The feedback is generally focused on the module Because it’s at the end of the module, it doesn’t feed into our future work. If 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. I read it and think “Well, that’s fine but I’ve already handed it in now and got the mark. It’s too late”. STRUCTURAL
- 48. It was like ‘Who’s Holly?’ It’s that relationship where you’re just a student. Because they have to mark so many that our essay becomes lost in the sea that they have to mark. Here they say ‘Oh yes, I don’t know who you are. Got too many to remember, don’t really care, I’ll mark you on your assignment’. RELATIONAL
- 50. Irretrievable breakdown… Your essay lacked structure and your referencing is problematic Your classes are boring and I don’t really like you
- 51. A way of thinking about assessment and feedback?
- 52. Ways to be dialogic • Conversation: who starts the dialogue? • Cycles of reflection across modules • Quick generic feedback • Feedback synthesis tasks • Peer feedback (especially on formative) • Technology: audio, screencast and blogging • From feedback as ‘telling’… • … to feedback as asking questions
- 53. And human…. I use first & second person in feedback A real person marked this! You are known I use plain, imaginative English No techno-bot-speak allowed! So last century!
- 54. The key to dialogue
- 55. Students to lecturers: Critical Incident Questionnaire Stephen Brookfield’s Critical Incident Questionnaire http://bit.ly/1loUzq0
- 57. Have a go at triangulating data • Read through audit, AEQ and focus group data from one programme • Quick abstract/bullet points of what seems to be going on • Discuss with your group/flipchart a) What are the stand out themes? b) What jigsaw pieces fit together? c) What unresolved issues remain?
- 58. Main pointers for focus group • Questions are broad themes • Easy to complicated • Sit in a circle • It’s the discussion that matters • Go with the flow • But steer when off topic, direct, pass the ball • Troubleshooting • Ethics
- 59. Role play (5 minutes)
- 60. Getting students to attend… • Get the support of lecturers, programme team • Explore using student researchers • Use vouchers • Food • Between 3 and 8 students for one hour • Ethics and confidentiality
- 61. What the data looks like: …and the intelligent transcript texttoMP3 https://transcribe.wreally.com/
- 62. Coding 101 CODES • Marker variation • Written criteria • Peer feedback • Subjectivity • Formative feedback • Exemplars • Multi-stage assessment • Marking exercises CATEGORY Internalising standards
- 63. The tone of the case study • Build a narrative thread • Descriptive, non-evaluative tone • Empathetic • Surprises, puzzles, contradictions • Balancing weak and strong features • Admitting gaps, interpretation, errors • Not prescriptive, but give a steer & create options
- 64. Theme 3: Confusion about goals and standards • Consistently low scores on the AEQ for clear goals and standards • Alienation from the tools • Perceptions of marker variation, unfair standards and inconsistencies in practice
- 65. We’ve got two tutors- one marks completely differently to the other and it’s pot luck which one you get. They read the essay and then they get a general impression, then they pluck a mark from the air. It’s like Russian roulette – you may shoot yourself and then get an A1. They have different criteria, they build up their own criteria.
- 66. 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”.
- 67. Implicit Criteria Explicit Written I justify Co-creation and participation Active engagement by students O'Donovan, B , Price, M. and Rust, C. 2008
- 68. Taking action: internalising goals and standards • Regular calibration exercises • Team discussion and dialogue Lecturers • Rewrite/co-create criteria • Discussing exemplars Lecturers and students • Enter secret garden - peer review • Engage in drafting processes Students
- 69. Shifting paradigms from this…
- 70. …to the adult equivalent of this
- 71. References Barlow, A. and Jessop, T. 2016. “You can’t write a load of rubbish”: Why blogging works as formative assessment. Educational Developments. 17(3), 12-15. SEDA. Boud, D. and Molloy, E. (2013) ‘Rethinking models of feedback for learning: The challenge of design’, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 38(6), pp. 698–712. Gibbs, G. & Simpson, C. (2004) Conditions under which assessment supports students' learning. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education. 1(1): 3-31. Harland, T., McLean, A., Wass, R., Miller, E. and Sim, K. N. (2014) ‘An assessment arms race and its fallout: High-stakes grading and the case for slow scholarship’, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. Jessop, T. and Tomas, C. 2017. The implications of programme assessment on student learning. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education. Jessop, T. and Maleckar, B. 2016. The Influence of disciplinary assessment patterns on student learning: a comparative study. Studies in Higher Education. Published Online 27 August 2014 Jessop, T. , El Hakim, Y. and Gibbs, G. (2014) The whole is greater than the sum of its parts: a large-scale study of students’ learning in response to different assessment patterns. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education. 39(1) 73-88. Nicol, D. 2010. From monologue to dialogue: improving written feedback processes in mass higher education, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 35: 5, 501 – 517. O'Donovan, B , Price, M. and Rust, C. (2008) 'Developing student understanding of assessment standards: a nested hierarchy of approaches', Teaching in Higher Education, 13: 2, 205 -217. Sadler, D. R. 1989. ‘Formative assessment and the design of instructional systems’, Instructional Science, 18(2), pp. 119–144. Tomas, C and Jessop, T. 2018. Struggling and juggling: A comparison of student assessment loads across research and teaching-intensive universities. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education. 18 April. Wu, Q. and Jessop, T. 2018. Formative assessment: missing in action in both research-intensive and teaching- focused universities. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education. Published online 15 January.
Editor's Notes
- Disconnected seeing the whole degree in silos – my module, lecturer perspective (Elephant, trunk, ears, tusks etc) compared to student perspective of the whole huge beast. I realise that what we were saying is two per module
- Language of ‘covering material’ Should we be surprised?
- The TESTA report back of programme findings 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, Education
- Summative as a ‘pedagogy of control’ Teach Less, learn more. Assess less, learn more.
- In the UK, assessment and feedback are primary areas of disquiet in the NSS. Provide very little diagnostic information to help course teams adopt more effective assessment strategies. Every year, routine charts red/green/orange – visual representation, accompanied by ritual humiliation of programmes, but not sure why or how to change! AEQ has been used in many countries
- Looked at in the overview – student effort; intellectual challenge, focused on understanding rather than memorising or ‘sufficing’; clear about goals and stds; feedback is effective – students read it, understand it, use it to improve what they do next. Cronbach’s Alpha – sounds like a disease to me but a test to measure the internal consistency of items – do all items measure the same construct?
- Is anyone listening?
- Use flip chart
- Codes look at small units of meaning – a student says – it takes 4 weeks to get it back, so you’ve already handed in the next one, or the tasks are different one after the other, or I never bother at the end of the course because it’s over. All of these are partly to do with timing, and they contribute to the theme of students not using their feedback. Another sub reason is that students don’t use feedback is because they don’t trust it so they say things like If x marks it you’ll get a good grade, if y a bad, or if you get her on a good day, or it’s so subjective etc
- What does it feel like to be a student? What does it feel like to be a lecturer at the end of this? An empathetic balanced reporting.
- Students can increase their understanding of the language of assessment through their active engagement in: ‘observation, imitation, dialogue and practice’ (Rust, Price, and O’Donovan 2003, 152), Dialogue, clever strategies, social practice, relationship building, relinquishing power.