Designing assessment and assessment-criteria

Designing assessment and
assessment criteria
Pam Parker, Jo Richardson, Dominic Pates and Matt
Goral

Learning Outcomes
By the end of the session you will be able to:
 Discuss what good assessment is for your discipline
 Explore some things to consider when designing an
assessment
 Review some different approaches that can be used
 Discuss if there is an assessment approach you might change
 Explain what assessment criteria and grade related criteria
are

“Students can escape
bad teaching, they
can’t escape bad
assessment”
Boud (1995) in Race
and Brown (2001) p30

Your experiences
What assessments are best suited to your discipline?
Why these assessments?
Are there any issues with these assessments?
Is there anything you would like change?

There are three main purposes of assessment:
1. To certify performance at a particular level (e.g. gaining a degree or
qualifying as a nurse). This constitutes Assessment of Learning
(Summative assessment)
2. To assure quality and standards – examining students’
assessments are an important part of this. Also constitutes
Assessment of Learning (AoL) (Summative assessment)
3. To improve students’ learning – by way of providing feedback on
performance, diagnosing student’s strengths and weaknesses and
providing a profile of what student has learnt. This constitutes
Assessment for Learning (AfL) (Formative assessment)

What assessments would you want?
The range of assessments available today provide a great deal of
flexibility and creativity in terms of choice BUT…. things that impact on
choice include:
 Time
 Student numbers
 Workload
 Technology and reliability
 Confidence of you to be able try something
 Professional requirements
The University does not prescribe assessments you can use a range
to meet the needs of your programme

Designing the Assessment (1)
There are some principles that need to be considered:
 The assessment must be linked to learning outcomes and students and
staff should be clear about the task
 The teaching and learning activities should enable students to practice
skills required in the assessment
 Assessment should be authentic, relevant and stimulating
 Assessments across a programme should be planned and reviewed
together to ensure there is a balance in terms of workload but also in
range and timing

Designing the Assessment (2)
 Assessment should be valid so it measures what it purports to
 The assessment should be reliable so provide the same results
with different markers and cohorts
 Assessment should be challenging and incrementally develop
skills
 Assessment should be designed to minimise plagiarism
 Assessment criteria should be clear
 Feedback should be timely and constructive.

Assessment typesWhat are you
assessing?
Assessment
approaches for this
Written skills Reports
Essays
Blog posts
Verbal skills Verbal Presentations
Video presentations
Practical skills Laboratory activities
Simulations
Design projects
Reflection skills Diary
Video diary
Recall and application Exams – MCQ, short
questions,
Case based assessment
Teamwork Group projects

Why diversify assessment?
 Able to assess a broader set of skills
 Reduces plagiarism
 Enhances students’ employability
 Video production
 Digital skills
 Presentation skills
 Student voice

What video assessment looks like?
 Financial Economics module
 Videos explaining topics from lecture (later used by other
students for revision), or solving a given exercise
 Peer marked
 Examples: http://moodle.city.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=15794

Case Study
 SHS Innovations in Healthcare module – Dr Caroline McGraw
 From 3000 word essay, to 1000 word essay and 3 min video
 A pitch video talking about the students’ innovative idea
 LEaD helped with assessment outcomes, logistics, equipment,
training sessions, etc.
 Students working on it right now!

Case Study
 IN2007 Human Computer Interaction – Dr Simone Stumpf
 Coursework is about designing an interface
 Part 2 is evaluating interface with users – those tests are
recorded
 To supplement a written report a “highlights video” is submitted
too
 This gives an idea of the quality of the tests themselves and the
students’ analysis

Common uses of student video
 Lab reports
 if not for as submission than potentially to
aid reflection
 Explanations
 students explaining how they solved a
problem
 give a tour of their project, or codebase
 Presentations / Negotiations /
Interviews

What are your feelings and thoughts?
 What interests you about this idea?
 What concerns you about it?
 How do you see this working, or not working, for you?

Written Assessments
Used to test cognitive skills, reflection, application
Essays
Reports
Blog posts
Lab reports

Group projects
Can be used to test problem solving skills, communication,
teamwork
Design projects
Problem solving cases
Real life simulation

Assessment criteria
City’s Assessment and Feedback Policy:
“Assessment criteria explain what a student
needs to demonstrate in order to complete
an assessment successfully. These provide
the minimum requirement expected of
students.”
https://www.city.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_fil
e/0019/340921/Assessment-and-
Feedback-Policy-Senate-October-2016.pdf

Writing assessment criteria
 These need to link to the learning outcomes being assessed
and should be measurable like the learning outcomes so
students know exactly what you want them to do and the
weighting for their assessment
 You need to consider the format of these for each
assessment and can set these up in a rubric
http://moodle.city.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=21509

Grade related Criteria
“Grade-related criteria explain what a
student needs to demonstrate in order to
achieve a certain grade or mark in an
assessment. These enable students to
be positioned within the overall set of
marks available for an assessment.”
https://www.city.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_
file/0019/340921/Assessment-and-
Feedback-Policy-Senate-October-
2016.pdf

Self assessment involves
students in identifying the
standards that their work
should meet and making a
judgement about this (Boud
1995)
Peer assessment is students
using the criteria or standards
against their peers work and
making a judgement about
this (Boud and Falchikov
1989)
Self and Peer Assessment

Group work activity
Using an existing assessment you have on a module or you
are involved in marking discuss the following:
 if you were going to change the assessment what would you
do instead and why?
 What would be your key criteria for that assessment?

LEaD services
MA Academic Practice Learning at City Conference Learning at City blog
Moodle Hub/Online Guidance Weekly Drop-Ins Bespoke Workshops
Every Thursday
13:00– 14:30
A201, College

References
Assessment https://www.city.ac.uk/about/education/quality-manual/6-assessment (accessed 20/04/17)
Gibbs, G. (2010) Using assessment to support student learning. Leeds Metropolitan University
Gibbs, G., Habeshaw, S. and Habeshaw, T. (1988) 53 Interesting Ways to Assess Your Students. Bristol: Technical and
Educational Services Ltd.
Higher Education Academy https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/individuals/student-success/toolkits/assessment (accessed
20/04/17)
Jackel B, Pearce J & Radloff A (2017) Assessment and feedback in higher education A literature review for the Higher
Education Academy https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/system/files/hub/download/acer_assessment.pdf (accessed 20/04/17)
Sambell, K., McDowell, L. and Montgomery, C. (2013) Assessment for Learning in Higher Education. Abingdon, Oxon:
Routledge.
University of London international programmes
http://www.londoninternational.ac.uk/sites/default/files/governance/ltas22/ltas22-2_assessment_toolkit-2015_interactive.pdf
(accessed 25/04/17)

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