Chapter 4: Assessment in Higher Education 4.1 Introduction
4.2 Participative assessment and its contribution to student learning .1 Introduction
4.2.7 Consolidating the benefits of participative assessment
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287). Such processes also prepare students for encounters they are likely to face in their professional lives.
Enhancing the value of teacher feedback – It is recognised that, while students can offer each other important insights, they may not always have the depth of understanding required to recognise errors and gaps in their own or their peers’
learning. Teachers, as subject experts, still have a contribution to make in helping students identify these gaps. However, when students have been through both peer- and self-assessment processes they are often better placed to engage with feedback provided by teachers (see, for example: Taras, 2001). Having already identified areas for improvement in their own work, students are also better placed to retain ownership of their work than they would be in purely unilateral situations.
Encouraging students to pay attention to feedback – Involving students in processes where they are expected to compare and contrast their own assessments with those provided by teachers can ensure that students engage deeply with the feedback received from both peers and teachers. Gibbs and Simpson (2004-05: 23) note that there is evidence that students frequently focus only on the marks they have been awarded and ignore the carefully crafted feedback teachers provide. However, Race (2001: 14) suggests that “students who have engaged conscientiously with self- assessment, and then receive feedback from a tutor … take feedback very seriously”.
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practices (see Sivan, 2000: 197 who also found that students’ lack of experience of participative approaches impacted on learning). While I believe participative assessment has the potential to enhance learning in all of the areas listed below, I am also convinced that the involvement of students in the assessment of their own work is an iterative process. Students will only derive the full range of benefits from such processes through repeated exposure to such methods and involvement in similar processes. Not only do students need to develop experience in assessing their own and each other’s work, but they also need to develop confidence in the process.
The points that follow represent a consolidated list of how I believe involving students in participative assessment interventions can enhance their learning. Based on the theoretical principles discussed above, I believe that participative assessment has the potential to:
Disrupt existing power relations in the classroom: While it’s possible for students to see participative assessment as a more subtle way of disciplining them (Boud, 1994), a sincere and transparent use of these approaches has the potential to shift the power relations within classrooms and to clearly signal the teacher’s commitment to sharing responsibility for learning with students and the expectation that students share responsibility for their learning with the teacher.
Promote deep approaches to learning: By involving students in the development of assessment criteria and encouraging them to apply these to their own work, teachers can help students gain a much more detailed understanding of what is expected of them. Provided that criteria clearly articulate the need for a deeper engagement with course materials, the involvement of students in both the construction and application of criteria can promote the adoption of deeper approaches to learning. The very process of grappling with criteria can deepen the learning experience, particularly when students must justify – to teachers and to peers – how they have used criteria in their assessment practice.
Promote a metacognitive alignment within the curriculum: Just as a constructively aligned curriculum seeks to establish clear links between outcomes, teaching and learning activities and assessment approaches, a curriculum involving participative assessment can promote alignment on a metacognitive level. If teachers seek to encourage the metacognitive abilities of students to become autonomous and responsible learners, they must also encourage students to develop the metacognitive abilities to become assessors of their own learning. Failure to involve students in assessment can lead to disjuncture within an otherwise aligned interactive system.
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Provide students with critical insights into assessment process: By involving students in assessment communities, participative approaches enable students to gain deeper insights into the propositional nature of knowledge and to recognise the subjective nature of assessment. By encouraging students to become part of assessment communities, teachers can make visible the shortcomings of assessment apparatus (criteria) and enable students to recognise the importance of gaining a deeper understanding of the tacit expectations of disciplines and professions.
Encourage dialogue between students and assessors: If students see themselves as part of an assessment community rather than as the subjects of an assessment system, they are more likely to enter into dialogue with peers and with teachers regarding the assessment of their own work. Within such communities, differences of opinion can become opportunities for fruitful dialogue and learning, rather than spaces for the unilateral exercise of power.
Contribute to students developing the metacognitive skills and dispositions required of autonomous learners: Participative assessment approaches send clear signals to students that they need to take responsibility for their own learning and can provide them with opportunities to develop the metacognitive skills they require to do so. By encouraging students to recognise ‘gaps’ in their knowledge and their application of this knowledge – through both self- and peer-assessment strategies – participative assessment equips students to take independent action in addressing shortcomings both with regard to immediate assessment tasks and in the completion of future tasks.
Promote the development of generic skills students will require as lifelong learners and future professionals: Participative assessment approaches provide students with authentic learning opportunities in which to develop generic interpersonal skills such as team-work, conflict management, group problem-solving, and written and verbal communication. They also provide students with valuable opportunities for reflecting on their performances in these areas and to receive feedback from both peers and teachers on how they manage such processes. These skills are particularly important for management students who will be required to supervise others in the workplace and who need to develop the ability to provide clear, concise and usable feedback.
Equip students for careers as autonomous and reflective professionals: By focusing attention on the need for ongoing self-assessment, participative assessment strategies can equip students for careers as autonomous independent professionals, who recognise the necessity for monitoring their own performance. In so doing, participative assessment
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approaches prepare students for careers as critically reflective practitioners equipped to challenge dominant discourses and associated practices in their professions.
Can improve both the quantity and timeliness of feedback students receive: By involving students in peer assessment activities, teachers can ensure that students get regular and timely feedback from peers. Teachers’ workloads may prevent them from providing feedback on each piece of work, but the involvement of students in such processes provides one, or at least a partial, solution to this problem.
Can increase learning by involving students in feedback: The process of articulating feedback to peers can greatly enhance students’ understandings of assessment criteria and tacit considerations in reflecting on what comprises quality in someone else’s work. This process also prepares students to be more informed assessors of their own work.
Help to ensure that feedback is understood, attended to and acted on: By involving students in feedback processes, teachers can help them to understand the vocabulary used in assessment. They can also engage students in discussions about feedback and in so doing ensure that it is attended to while also providing students with opportunities to re-visit assessment tasks and to enhance the quality of their work.
Enhance the teacher’s learning experience: By involving students in assessment communities, teachers are able to free themselves from the confines of having to make unilateral decisions about student performance. In doing so, they too can become partners in the learning process and allow teachers a degree of access to the learning communities their students belong to.
In this chapter I have drawn on theories and principles relating to assessment generally and in particular to theories relating to participative assessment in developing a core set of objectives that underpin the assessment innovation under study. The following chapter provides a thick description of how I sought to incorporate these theories and concepts in the module under study.
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Chapter 5: A thick description of the participative approach