can conference testa programme assessment
DESCRIPTION
Workshop using TESTA data from many UK programmes to show how modular programme design may have unintended consequences for student learning.TRANSCRIPT
Zoom to wide-angle lens: a programme approach to assessment and feedback
Dr Tansy Jessop
TESTA Project Leader
University of Winchester
CAN Conference: 18 and 19 February 2014
The big questions
Why assessment and feedback?
Why a programme approach?
Introducing TESTA
HEA funded research project (2009-12)
Seven programmes in four partner universities
Maps programme-wide assessment
Evidence-informed approach
About TESTATransforming the Experience of Students through Assessment
TESTA ‘Cathedrals Group’ Universities
EdinburghEdinburgh Napier
Greenwich
Canterbury Christchurch
Glasgow
Lady Irwin College University of Delhi
University of West Scotland
Sheffield Hallam
TESTA
“…is a way of thinking about assessment and feedback”
Graham Gibbs
Time-on-task
Challenging and high expectations
Internalising goals and standards – ‘self-regulation’
Prompt feedback
Detailed, high quality, developmental feedback
Dialogic cycles of feedback
Deep learning
Based on assessment principles
TESTA Research Methods(Drawing on Gibbs and Dunbar-Goddet, 2008,2009)
ASSESSMENTEXPERIENCE
QUESTIONNAIRE
FOCUS GROUPS
PROGRAMME AUDIT
Programme Team
Meeting
What’s going on?
What’s going wrong?
What’s working?
Definitions:
Formative assessment
Summative assessment
TESTA Case Studies
Rethinking formative and summativeTasting soup (Stake, 1991)
Formative
Summative
Case Study X: what’s going on?
Mainly full-time lecturersPlenty of varieties of assessment, no examsReasonable amount of formative assessment (14 x)33 summative assessmentsMasses of written feedback on assignments (15,000 words)Learning outcomes and criteria clearly specified
….looks like a ‘model’ assessment environment
But students:Don’t put in a lot of effort and distribute their effort across few topicsDon’t think there is a lot of feedback or that it very useful, and don’t make use of itDon’t think it is at all clear what the goals and standards are…are unhappy
Case Study Y: what’s going on?
35 summative assessments
No formative assessment specified in documents
Learning outcomes and criteria wordy and woolly
Marking by global, tacit, professional judgements
Teaching staff mainly part-time and hourly paid
….looks like a problematic assessment environment
But students:
Put in a lot of effort and distribute their effort across topics
Have a very clear idea of goals and standards
Are self-regulating and have a good idea of how to close the gap
Teach less, learn more
Transmission model
Expert
Full of knowledge
Experts transmits or ‘pours’ knowledge & information into the mug
Novice
Empty head
Workshop 1: looked at disciplinary stats from Programme Audit data, discussed implications in pairs
Workshop 2: Looked at student voice data from four themes on A3, identified problems and solutions in pairs. Themes and slides reflect workshop materials.
Workshop Elements
Eight Humanities Degrees in five universities: the typical student experience of
A&F over three years
Category Theology History History Philosoph
y
Politics English American
Studies
Media
Total assessments 49 50 40 72 52 54 63 53
Summative 45 45 39 47 49 26 52 34
Formative 4 5 1 25 3 28 11 19
Variety 9 17 7 7 13 10 13 14
Exam % 17.7 20 5 0 26.5 23.5 9.6 11.7
Time to return 21 21 22 35 14 26 21 21
Oral feedback in minutes 175 295 290 135 59 50 212 359
Number of words written
feedback
7,378 4,995 5,920 3,060 7,527 11,865 10,972 7,344
Audit data: Workshop 1
1) Any interesting patterns?
2) Anything particularly striking?
3) Any dangling questions, curiosities, scepticisms?
4) Any predictions, hunches, thoughts about what other data might throw up?
TESTA Audit data
Challenges Solutions
Workshop 2: Student voice data
If there weren’t loads of other assessments, I’d do it.
If there are no actual consequences of not doing it, most students are going to sit in the bar.
It’s good to know you’re being graded because you take it more seriously.
I would probably work for tasks, but for a lot of people, if it’s not going to count towards your degree, why bother?
Theme 1: Formative is a great idea but…
We could do with more assessments over the course of the year to make sure that people are actually doing stuff.
We get too much of this end or half way through the term essay type things. Continual assessments would be so much better.
So you could have a great time doing nothing until like a month before Christmas and you’d suddenly panic. I prefer steady deadlines, there’s a gradual move forward, rather than bam!
Theme 2: Assessment isn’t driving and helping to distribute effort
The feedback is generally focused on the module.
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.
Because it’s at the end of the module, it doesn’t feed into our future work.
Theme 3: Feedback is disjointed and modular
Assessment criteria can make you take a really narrow approach.
It’s such a guessing game.... You don’t know what they expect from you.
I don’t have any idea of why it got that mark.
They read the essay and then they get a general impression, then they pluck a mark from the air.
It’s a shot in the dark.
Theme 4: Students are not clear about goals and standards
Assessment Design
Feedback Practice
Paper to people
Smart Changes
www.testa.ac.uk
Gibbs, G. & Simpson, C. (2004) Conditions under which assessment supports students' learning. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education. 1(1): 3-31.Gibbs, G. & Dunbar-Goddet, H. (2009). Characterising programme-level assessment environments that support learning. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. 34,4: 481-489.Hattie, J. (2007) The Power of Feedback. Review of Educational Research. 77(1) 81-112.Jessop, T. and Maleckar, B. (in press). The Influence of disciplinary assessment patterns on student learning: a comparative study. Studies in Higher Education.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.
Jessop, T, McNab, N and Gubby, L. (2012) Mind the gap: An analysis of how quality assurance processes influence programme assessment patterns. Active Learning in Higher Education. 13(3). 143-154.Jessop, T., El Hakim and Gibbs (2011) Research Inspiring Change. Educational Developments. 12(4).Nicol, D. (2010) From monologue to dialogue: improving written feedback processes in mass higher education, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 35: 5, 501 – 517Sadler, D.R. (1989) Formative assessment and the design of instructional systems, Instructional Science, 18, 119-144.
References