Assessment

Before considering what to assess, you might wish to consider what's worth learning.

Most academics would argue that the ideal purpose of their teaching is to foster a critical appreciation of ideas, creativity and independence of thought. It is not the lecture that will encourage such higher learning dispositions, rather it is the design and conduct of assessment.

Planning assessment is planning for student learning. Assessment tasks and processes establish the learning culture of a department or Faculty. The design of assessment tasks, the ways in which the tasks are assessed and the ways in which the assessors give feedback to students all determine the ways in which students will approach their learning at university.

The objective for assessment should be to ensure that assessment processes have educational integrity without increasing the workload for staff and students.

Educational integrity is created when the tasks or learning activities are focused on the expressed educational intentions and are capable of producing the desired learning outcomes.

The processes should provide both the teacher and the student with a clear understanding, through feedback, of how their performances compare with an orderly development in capability. This achievement ought to be accurately reflected in a grade.