Key Issues in Assessment

This half-day workshop aims to provide support for getting started in assessments. The workshop includes presentations from the tutor and group based activities. After the session participants should be able to:

  • Identify the purposes and requirements of assessment
  • Consider practical aspects of setting, marking and providing feedback on assessments
  • Identify ways of making assessment more effective

Level 1: for new teaching staff or those with experience wishing to renew their practice.

Presented by: Shelley Drew or Ian Giles

Resources and Links

Assessment (PowerPoint)

Student views on assessment feedback
A set of video clips produced by the Higher Education Academy

University policies on assessment 
Whenever you are considering how to assess your students it is important to take account of the policy of the University. This is intended to ensure that students are assessed as objectively and as fairly as possible.

University of Southampton - Student Feedback on Assessment Practices 
Data on assessment from the Student Evaluation Questionnaires

LATEU - Assessment and Feedback 
Information about institutional activity, plus many useful links.

HEA Subject Centres 
Some centres are better than others for material on assessment, but they have the merit of being discipline-focused. For example, see the Social Work and Policy (SWAP) site for a useful introduction to computer-assissted assessment and an overview of different forms of assessment, as well as lots of good links.

HEA Resources 
Click the Resources tab and search to find a wealth of resources, such as Enhancing Student learning Through Effective Formative Feedback 

Assessment Guides and Briefings 
Produced by the LTSN Generic Centre in 2001, but still current and useful 

Bibliography

For general guidance there are a number of excellent books, all of which can be borrowed from the Hartley Library. In each case the title provides a good indication of the content.

David Baume and Carol Baume (1996) Learning to Teach: Assessing Students’ Work, The Oxford Centre for Staff Development (extract provided in pack)

Sue Habeshaw, Graham Gibbs and Trevor Habeshaw (1993) 53 Interesting ways to Assess your Students, Technical and Educational Services Ltd

These are very helpful introductory guides and contain a lot of practical tips and materials which can be adapted for use in a wide variety of situations.

Allen Miller, Bradford Imrie and Kevin Cox (1998) Student Assessment in Higher Education: A handbook for assessing performance, Kogan Page

While this covers similar ground to the first two books, it is a little more academic in its approach.

Peter Schwartz and Graham Webb (2002) Assessment. Case studies, experience and practice from higher education, Kogan Page

This provides illustrations of some of the challenges academics face when they attempt to be creative and innovative in their approach to assessment and gives the reader plenty of food for thought.

If you want to go even further and see examples of research activity in this field, there is a specialist academic journal, Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, which is available in the Hartley Library and on-line.

Other journals also have articles on assessment. These include Active Learning in Higher Education, the Journal of Further and Higher Education and Teaching in Higher Education