Assessment in higher education

On successful completion of this unit participants will be able to:

1. Critically analyse existing practice in marking and feedback for a selected unit or programme of study in Higher Education.
2. Evaluate the importance of a range of factors which influence assessment for learning in Higher Education, such as student involvement in assessment, ethical practice, employability, internationalisation and the use of technology to support learning.
3. Design appropriate assessment tasks which will support learning in a selected unit of study in Higher Education.
4. Design an assessment strategy for a selected unit or programme of study in Higher Education which is inclusive, rigorous and focused on achievement of the programme learning outcomes.

The unit will aim to give participants an opportunity to make a deeper study of assessment in the context of their own professional practice and to make recommendations for change in assessment strategies for their units and programmes.
The unit will cover:

• A review of participants’ previous experience and study of assessment.
• Inclusive assessment practice.
• The Assessment Lifecycle and its management and  administration.
• Involving students in assessment: rationale and practice.
• Constructive alignment: designing assessment tasks to effectively measure learning outcomes at all taught levels in HE.
• The importance of feedback in the learning process and techniques for giving and managing feedback effectively.
• The management of assessment within an institutional or departmental policy such as the MMU Institutional Code of Practice on Assessment and with reference to the QAA Quality Code.
• The importance of good assessment design in promoting ethical behaviour.
• Designing assessment to support institutional priorities.

Formative Assessment

Progress towards the summative assessment tasks is staged, with participants being expected to complete regular relevant activities for which they will receive rapid feedback. Examples of such activities include an analysis of the alignment of learning outcomes and assignment tasks for a given unit of study, or of a type of assignment task which is novel to the participant.

Summative Assignment Task

The assignment task is to present an assessment strategy for a unit or programme of study in Higher Education, explaining the rationale with reference to a critical review of an existing strategy and to relevant recent literature about learning and assessment in HE. The exact format of the presentation will be negotiated with the unit leader. For guidance, it might consist of a combination of a 10 minute oral presentation, video or audio presentation, a web resource for colleagues, a set of completed forms for a quality committee, or an A2 poster, supported by a 1500 word review of an existing unit or programme assessment strategy; or it could be a traditional written report (guide length 2500 words).