Introducing Assessment

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Introducing Assessment

• Dr. Ciara OFarrell
• CAPSL
• Trinity College Dublin

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Magic Wand

• What one thing would you change about assessment,
  and why?

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Fact of life

• Students learn what they think they will be
  assessed on
• (Biggs)

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Learning Outcomes

• By the end of this workshop, you should be able
  to
• Define some purposes of assessment at third level
• Apply the principles of constructive alignment
• Identify and apply different methods of
  assessment
• Differentiate between formative, summative and
  continuous assessment

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Purposes of Assessment

• Form groups
• Take five minutes to jot down your individual
  current reasons for assessing students

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Possible Purposes of Assessment

• Achievement of Learning Outcomes
• Grade or mark
• Pass or fail
• Licence to practice
• Allow to proceed
• Predict success
• Peer benchmarking

• Learn
• Feedback to staff
• Feedback to students
• Enhance motivation
• Public relations, respectability and
  accountability
• Huntley-Moore/Panter

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Constructive Alignment

• Teachers responsibility to fashion a learning
  environment where learning activities are wholly
  appropriate to achieving the desired learning
  outcomes.
• Cf Biggs 1999

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Matching assessment with Learning Outcomes

• Ensure assessment method tests learning outcome
• Ensure assessment does not test any significant
  learning outcomes that are not explicitly stated
  as such
• Ensure all major course outcomes are assessed

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Writing Learning Outcomes

• E.g. After completing this lecture/tutorial you
  should be able to
• The specified action must be done by the
  learners.
• The specified action by the learners must be
  measurable.
• S.M.A.R.T.

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Good or not so good?

• Participants will understand the nine reasons for
  conducting a needs assessment.

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Better?

• Participants will list nine reasons for
  conducting a needs assessment.

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Good or not so good?

• Participants will develop an appreciation of
  cultural diversity in the workplace.

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Better

• Participants will summarize in writing their
  feelings about cultural diversity in the
  workplace.

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Some sample action verbs

• compile, create, plan, revise, analyze, design,
  select, utilize, apply, demonstrate, prepare,
  use, compute, discuss, explain, predict, assess,
  compare, rate, critique
• AVOID know, become aware of, appreciate, learn,
  understand, become familiar with

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Activity Learning outcomes

• Individually list a sample learning outcome for a
  course/lecture you will be teaching (5-10
  minutes)
• Form groups
• Evaluate each others learning outcomes are
  they clear and accessible?

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Methods of Assessment

• Work in groups
• Brainstorm as many traditional and diverse
  methods of assessment as you can.

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Some methods of assessment

• Essays
• Unseen written exams
• Reports
• Case studies
• Portfolios
• Projects
• Vivas
• Assessed seminars

• Poster presentations
• Annotated bibliographies
• Logs
• Diaries
• Reflective journals
• Critical incident accounts

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Some methods of assessment

• Field studies
• Exhibitions
• Critiques
• Theses
• Open-book exams
• Take-away papers
• Simulations
• CAA

• In-tray exercises
• Live assignments
• Multiple choice questions
• Mini-practicals
• Modified essay questions
• OSCEs
• Group projects
• Work-based assessment

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Trends in assessment

• Traditional
• Examinations
• Lecture-led
• Implicit criteria
• Product assessment
• Content
• Decontextualised
• Convergent
• Individual

• Developments
• Course work
• Student-led
• Explicit Criteria
• Process assessment
• Skills
• Contextualised
• Divergent
• Group
• Brown and Biggs

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Activity

• Individually Go back to the learning outcome you
  wrote in the last activity.
• List one or more methods of assessment that would
  assess achievement of this learning outcome.
• Form groups, discuss, and report to group.

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Summative assessment

• Used to signify competence or contributes to a
  students grade
• Should determine whether, and to what extent,
  student has obtained learning outcomes

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Formative assessment

• Used to provide feedback to the student on their
  learning
• Generally felt - should not form part of the
  summative mark

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Continuous Assessment

• Series of tasks individually assessed
• Timely feedback important

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Involving others in the assessment process

• Self assessment
• Peer assessment
• Group assessment

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Reflecting on assessment

• What types of questions did the students do well
  on? In what respects?
• What types of questions did they struggle with?
  In what respects?
• What kind of tasks were there a variety of
  responses to?
• Which assessments did they avoid?
• Which assessment questions were the most popular?
• What can all this tell us about learning,
  teaching and assessment?

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Food for group discussion

• Something like 90 of a typical university
  degree depends on unseen time-constrained written
  examinations, and tutor-marked essays and/or
  reports. (Biggs)

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Food for group discussion

• Why is feedback so important?
• Will students take formative assessment
  seriously?
• How can you make feedback more efficient?

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Assessment checklist

• Are the aims and learner outcomes of the module
  clear?
• Would attainment of these learner outcomes mean
  that the aims of the module have been achieved?
• Are the assessment criteria for this module clear
  and explicit?
• Are all the appropriate learning outcomes
  assessed?
• Does the assessment scheme enable students to
  obtain feedback on major elements of the module?
• Is each assessment method or task appropriate?
• Is the marking scheme likely to be reliable?
• Is the assessment task efficient?
• Have you performed an analysis of the assessment
  results?

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A compulsory examination for all assessors (see
handout)

• Answer all questions. This examination is
  un-timed. Consultation with others (including
  students) and reference to texts and other
  sources is RECOMMENDED.
• 1. What intended learning outcomes do you assess?
  How well does your approach to assessment align
  with these outcomes?
• 2. Justify and criticise your choice of
  assessment methods and tasks used to assess the
  outcomes in question 1.
• 3. Refer to relevant research on assessment in
  your answer.
• 4. Describe, justify and criticise your use of
  criteria, methods of grading and/or marking.
• 5. Outline and justify your approach to providing
  feedback to students. Refer to relevant research
  in your answer.
• 6. With reference to research findings, describe,
  justify and criticise your marking techniques to
  overcome the following
• a) variations in standards on a single occasion
• b) variations in standards on different
  occasions
• c) variations between assessors
• d) differences in students handwriting.
• 7. How do you ensure that your standards are
  similar to standards adopted in comparable
  assessments and examinations?
• 8. What values underlie your approach to
  assessment in higher education? How are they
  manifest in your practice?
• Evaluate your answers to questions 17.
• Reproduced from
• George Brown, (2001), Assessment A Guide for
  Lecturers, LTSN Generic Centre, Assessment
  Series No.3.