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You, or your team, can get started with your
project with the help of the steps presented here. Also consult the
Introduction and Methods
and Examples sections of this site.
If you would like some help from CELT in planning
and implementing your assessment project, please complete the Expression
of Interest form. This gives us preliminary information about your
needs and plans so that we can set up our first meeting.
Here are the simple procedures to help you start planning
and implementing your AFL course:
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If you are working at
the course level, then learning objectives and outcomes need to
be aligned with those at the departmental programme level, which
in turn need to be aligned with institutional
objectives and outcomes for students. Objectives and outcomes
can be seen as statements from two perspectives of pre- and post-course
respectively. In education today, there is an increased emphasis
on learning outcomes rather than learning objectives. Objectives
and outcomes can be grouped into cognitive, affective and behavioural
(or knowledge, attitudes and skills respectively). These are a number
of taxonomies available for these that are hierarchically arranged
in terms of their degree of complexity and the two most commonly
used cognitive ones at the university level are Bloom's
taxonomy and Biggs'
SOLO taxonomy. Bloom's taxonomy actually covers affective and
psychomotor domains, in addition to the cognitive domain. A list
of verbs you can use in writing objectives for each of these three
domains can be found at http://eduscapes.com/tap/topic69.htm. |
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At university level, it is important to review the assessments
to check to what extent, and where, they are meeting the higher
order cognitive levels generally expected of any university student.
We also quite naturally tend to focus on the cognitive dimension
of learning outcomes as these are generally easier to measure
and provide feedback on. However, it is important to remember
the affective and behavioural domains too. For example, in our
specified learning outcomes the notion of increasing the ability
for learners to manage their own learning, which in turn implies
the ability to critically reflect on, and learn from, previous
learning, is often implicit. So if self-managed learning, critical
thinking and reflective learning are things that we value in our
students' growth, then how will we measure these? Also, how will
we ensure that both learning activities and assessment methods
involve these attributes?
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Probably the most common
method of assessment is an exam containing a mix of multiple-choice
questions (MCQs), short open-ended questions and essays. MCQs are
often very useful for checking knowledge recall but to design MCQs
that test higher-order thinking, such as analysis, synthesis or
evaluation, takes a lot of effort and often considerable piloting.
Consequently, we need to look at providing a variety of assessment
methods both at the course level and at the undergraduate programme
level. For a list of assessment methods see the Methods
and Examples section. |
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There are obviously competing
demands here, as the most valid and reliable types of assessment
can take the most time. For example, the Hong Kong exams authority
takes two years to develop an exam which involves initial test construction,
peer review and revision followed by repeated cycles of review-revision,
then piloting followed by evaluation (e.g. item analysis of MCQs
to check for item discrimination) and final revision. Obviously,
such a long process is not practical within a university but some
practical alternative that retains sufficient validity and reliability
needs to be developed. A balance needs to be struck between coverage
of learning outcomes and practical constraints of time, resources
and cost. If you have not viewed it already, see the section of
the video given by Dr. Peter Knight in the Introduction
section where he talks about this issue and provides some suggestions
for efficient ways of assessing. |
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Today, it is possible to generate quite a large number of assessment
alternatives when the wide range of assessment methods available
to teachers are put together with the different sources of assessment
(i.e. who does the assessing tutor, peer, self, other) and th
different assessment instruments (i.e. types of criteria). See
the section on Methods and Examples
for this.
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At this stage, it is really
more a question of which outcomes (knowledge, attributes and skills)
are being measured in a specific task. How does this fit in with
the other assessment for the course or programme? It is likely that
not all outcomes will be assessed but we need to know which ones
are not being assessed and have a justifiable rationale for not
including them. |
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Are the actual marking
schemes and criteria aligned with the learning outcomes? For example,
Biggs' SOLO taxonomy, mentioned earlier, has five categories and
this has been used as a means of letter grading assessments (A,
B, C, D, F) such as essays and portfolios. As the SOLO taxonomy
corresponds to the type of thinking that is displayed it can be
quite easy to see the alignment of an assessment with the specified
learning outcomes. See the section on instruments
under Methods and Examples for
a list of different types of criteria. |
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This question relates to quality assurance approaches to the
construction of assessment tasks. Following the steps above is
a self-assessment quality assurance method that acn be used during
the design phase of the assessment task. You could obviously bring
in a colleague from within your discipline to give some feedback
on the assessment. Also, colleagues from other courses could listen
to your rationale for the assessment and the coverage of outcomes
and provide feedback through this discussion. Perhaps for core
courses, there may be a departmental programme committee that
could be involved in this feedback. However, you also need to
think about how you will evaluate the assessment once it has been
implemented; reviewing how the questions were answered and again
self, peer and student feedback could be solicited. You will also
need to think about the action that will be taken in the light
of this and how the results of the evaluation of the assessment
will be disseminated (presumably as one element in the existing
procedure for disseminating evaluation results of courses and
programme design and delivery). Below are eight self-assessment
questions for evaluating the quality of your assessment processes:
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1
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What intended
learning outcomes do you assess? How well does your approach
to assessment align with these outcomes? |
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2
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Justify and
criticise your choice of assessment methods and tasks used
to assess the outcomes in question 1. |
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3
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Refer to
relevant research on assessment in your answer. |
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4
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Describe,
justify and criticise your use of criteria, methods of grading
and/or marking. |
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5
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Outline and
justify your approach to providing feedback to students. Refer
to relevant research in your answer. |
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6
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With reference to research findings, describe, justify
and criticise your marking techniques to overcome the following:
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a.
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variations in standards
on a single occasion; |
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b.
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variations in standards
on different occasions; |
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c.
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variations between assessors; |
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d.
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differences in students'
handwriting. |
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7
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How do you
ensure that your standards are similar to standards adopted
in comparable assessments and examinations? |
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8
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What values
underlie your approach to assessment in higher education?
How are they manifest in your practice? |
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