Research on Assessment Tells Us that:

• Assessment causes anxiety for both students and teachers.

• It is often merely tacked on to a course as an afterthought.

• Tests sometimes do not match the stated goals of a course.
  (Note: the tendency to teach one thing and assess something else).

• Valid and reliable tests are difficult and time-consuming to design.

• All assessments involve an element of subjective judgement.

• Effective assessments can reveal what students have learnt and understood.

• The way we assess is a key influence on how students learn. Students will change the way they learn to meet assessment demands.

• Assessment feedback to students is often unhelpful because of its timing and the kind of comments provided.

• Students' performance on tests are both an indication of how they have learned and how we have taught.

• High scores on tests may not always be the best predictors of the quality of student learning.

Some Guiding Principles

• Match assessment procedures to stated goals (review the skills, competencies and knowledge you want your students to develop and list ways by which you could assess them).

• Plan for consistency of standards. Develop explicit grade criteria statements for assessment to ensure consistency in marking. (see examples enclosed).

• Take into account the probable workload implications for students (develop a schedule of assignments to ensure that the workload is evenly distributed throughout the course to avoid overloading students).

• Communicate assessment requirements (format, timing, content specification, marking criteria) clearly to students.

• Use a variety of ways to assess student learning.

• Develop effective methods of providing students with formative feedback.

University's Guidelines on Assessment

1.        There needs to be a clear distinction between coursework activities which are intended solely to help students learn and progress and those which are intended to be assessed and taken into consideration as part of their final marks. It would be inappropriate to include formative assignments into the summative form of assessment unless students are informed beforehand of their inclusion. Therefore, Course Teams are encouraged to reflect on the learning outcomes when considering assessment.

2.        The appropriate forms of assessment and its weighting need to be rationalised to ensure that they truly match the aims and objectives of each of the subjects.

3.        A range of assessment methodologies, in line with the aims and objectives of the course and the level of study, is encouraged e.g. to develop oral communication skills could involve requiring an assessed presentation, to assess knowledge of a particular subject might best be done by an examination or tests; to gauge students' ability to work as a member of a group could entail group project work and so forth. However, one needs to be careful about relying purely on project work for assessment especially for undergraduate courses. Some form of conceptual understanding of the principles underlying the nature of the subject needs to be included in the assessment as well.

4.        It does not constitute good practice for University students to be examined in ways that do not require them to examine the subject in depth. In this vein, the use of multiple choice questions, true/false, completion or fill in the blanks questions in examination papers must be seriously reviewed. These forms of assessment may have a place in securing a quick means of feedback of student learning under the category of "tests".

5.        For knowledge laden 1st year subjects, 50% of the overall assessment grades should be assessed by examination.

6.        For subjects which are to be assessed both by coursework and examination, and where coursework constitutes more than 30% of the overall assessment, a passing mark independent of performance on the coursework elements must be attained on the subject examination.

7.        Where coursework accounts for 100% of assessment, the Course Team must ensure that there is adequate monitoring by the staff to establish that the work done is entirely the work of the student. It would be preferable for staff to keep track of the progress of students' coursework and to ensure that feedback for students improvement is provided throughout the course.

8.        Consistency in monitoring standards should be ensured for all subjects of the course.

9.        Compatibility of assessments between subjects in relation to the number of units should be ensured, e.g. a 5000 words assignment for 50% assessment criteria of a 3 unit subject is not equivalent to 10,000 words for the entire credit for a 6 unit Honours project on the same course in question.

10.        Students' presentation and communication skills should be reflected in all assessments, but particularly for essays, oral presentations, and other forms of coursework.

11.        "Coursework/Continuous Assessment" and "Examination" should not be bunched together. All coursework assessments should be completed 3-4 weeks prior to the examination period to allow for feedback to support the learning process and preferably should be provided throughout the semester/year.

12.        A clear and explicit definition of the composition of elements under the term "coursework/continuous assessment" needs to be established. (Experience elsewhere suggests that such elements have not been suitable for discriminating student ability and tends to bunch and inflate grades (Webster, Lucas and Gibbs - 1996)). Consistency in moderating standards and grades for all subjects with such assessments will be necessary because different teachers/assessors are involved.

13.        Similarly, the terms "attitude, effort, participation and contribution" need further clarification as they appear rather subjective and wholly student referenced. Consistency in grading and moderating these items will be necessary.

14.        A break-down of the term "assignments" needs to be provided to students early in the semester as an indication of what will be involved.

15.        "Examination" not "final examination", is the term used for the end of semester/year formal assessment.

16.        The weighting for assessment of Year 1, Year 2 and Year 3 subjects needs to be rationalized, but Year 3 assessment must comprise no less than 50% of the total for the entire course.

17.        The assessment philosophy and its relation to the subject philosophy, its rationale, criteria, procedures, assessment strategies and weightings should be made explicit to students at the beginning of each semester. Students should know what is to be assessed, when and how it is to be assessed. For quality assurance purposes, students should be adequately informed of the department's/course's policy on late submissions, re-submissions, failed assignments and so forth. These should link with the University's regulations. Such information should be made explicit in the course document.