Additional resources on assessment & feedback

Blog posts

Assessment in Higher Education: A great blog by Rachel Forsyth addressing all things assessment.

Teaching Matters Assessment & Feedback Tag: Teaching Matters have a specific category for 'Assessment and Feedback', where you can explore all posts related to this topic.

Posts that may be particularly helpful to read include:

• Making assessment meaningful: A reflection from Dr Miki Y Sun on a talk by Dr Kathy Charles on focusing on the start point of assessment, rather than the end point.
• “I’ll give you your grade when you give me feedback on my feedback”: Building a meaningful feedback loop into assessment processes.
• Spotlight on alternative assessment: Teaching Matters blog has a series of posts highlighting alternative assessment methods that were developed and trialed during Covid-19 pandemic, and the University's pivot to hybrid teaching and learning. These include online exams, remote exam marking, & alternatives to exams.
• Assessment and Feedback Principles and Priorities Theme: Focusing on the implementation of the University's Assessment and Feedback Principles and Priorities.
• Five inquiries from the ‘Assessment and Feedback’ series: Teaching Matters newsletter, October 2022, with Collegiate Commentary from Dr Donna Huford at the University of Southern Denmark and independent educational consultant Andrew Read.
• Assessment and Feedback Revisited: Examples of good practice in implementing the University's Assessment and Feedback Principles and Priorities.
• Assessing students through online role-playing: Dr Ellie Devenish-Nelson describes how she implemented an authentic assessment in her online MSc course using role-play scenarios.

Podcast episodes

Talking Learning and Teaching: Episode 16: Feedback with David Carless on Apple Podcasts: Professor David Carless, University of Hong Kong, talks about his research focus on teacher and student feedback literacy to enhance the impact of feedback processes.

From Teaching Matters:

• Does your assessment really discriminate learning attainment? (29 minutes);
• Why use a full range of marks? (18 minutes);
• How Covid-19 impacted assessment: Academic misconduct (12 mins);
• How Covid-19 changed assessment: Podcast (13 min) + Explainer Video (2 min);
• Can blogging be used as an effective form of assessment?

Videos

Learning and Teaching Conference 2021 - Unintended consequences of approaches to marking and assessment, by Michael Daw, and Supporting Criteria-Based Marking, by Paul Anderson (1hr).

Learning and Teaching Conference 2022 - Zines as Misfit Assessment (33 mins), by Dr Dan Swanton.

Learning and Teaching Conference 2023 - To Grade or to Ungrade, that is the question! (18 mins), by Dave Laurenson, James Hopgood and Itamar Kastner.

Challenges with assessment – how are we responding to students’ feedback? (27 mins): This ENGAGE video shows how student feedback from the Leading Enhancement in Assessment and Feedback (LEAF) project report can improve assessment and feedback.

Introduction to Ungrading (7 mins) and Tips for Ungrading (5 mins): "Ungrading" is an increasingly popular movement across universities around the world. In the first video, USC Professors Evgeny Dengub and Lori Mesrobian explain what ungrading is and why they use this approach in their classrooms. In the second video, Professor Evgeny Dengub shares his ideas and practices on syllabus for the ungraded classroom and ways to assign the final grade.

Engaging students with assessment and feedback: a case study in 3D chess from Heriot Watt University (37 minutes): In this Engage Network recording, Dr Andrew MacLaren, Associate Professor of Team Communication at Heriot Watt University, introduces the Assessment and Feedback protocol introduced across Heriot Watt, and designed to improve the assessment and feedback process for staff and students. 

Training courses

Academic Development team events, online courses and networks: The Academic Development team sometimes offer assessment and feedback themed workshops and events within their provision.

Sign-posting

Assessment: On the Academic Quality and Standards website, you can find policy documents that may be relevant to formulating assessment and feedback processes:

• Assessment regulations- taught & postgraduate
• Board of Examiners
• Handbook for Board of Examiners for Taught Courses & Programmes (20 pages)
• Example Internal Moderation Form (2 pages)
• Degree classification

Toolkits and guidance

Expanded Assessment Top Trumps: A downloadable set of cards, each containing an outline of an assessment that may be considered to be authentic. Developed by Lydia Arnold.

The following are really helpful, concise quick guides developed by Heriot Watt's Learning and Teaching Academy:

• Getting students to engage with feedback (2 pages): Helpful advice for getting students to engage with feedback.
• Giving formative feedback prior to summative tasks (2 pages): A helpful guide on implementing formative feedback in courses.
• Using exemplars to enhance learning and support achievement (2 pages): A useful guide on how to support students through the use of exemplars. 

Websites

Principles of good assessment and feedback guide (2022): A Jisc guide based on their seven principles of how good learning, teaching and assessment can be applied to improving assessment and feedback practice.

Transforming Assessment in Higher Education Framework: An 'Advance HE Essential Frameworks for Enhancing Student Success' document, focusing on three key areas for transforming assessment: innovative assessment; feedback practices; and self and peer assessment.

Assessment in Higher Education network: The Assessment in Higher Education (AHE) is an independent network focused on developing research-informed practice in assessment and feedback in higher education. AHE is governed by an international Executive Committee but hosted by the LED Research Centre at the University of Cumbria in England. They hold annual conferences on assessment and feedback, normally in June in Manchester, UK.

Impacts of higher education assessment and feedback policy and practice on students: a review of the literature 2016-2021 (for Advance HE members only): The AdvanceHE website provides a literature review exploring evidence from peer-reviewed journal articles relating to assessment and feedback in higher education published from 2016 to 2021. The review highlights evidence-based assessment and feedback policies or practices that have had a demonstrable impact on key student outcomes including performance, engagement and satisfaction, and prompts a rethinking of traditional views of assessment and feedback.

Enhancing Assessment: a practitioner guide (for Advance HE members only): Part of the Advance HE member benefit project, 'Fit for the future: Enhancing and adapting practice for new paradigms of higher education', this practitioner guide has been developed as a resource for educators to provide insights into impactful and innovative assessment practices.

There is an online Taylor & Francis Journal, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, that is particularly worth exploring.

Ajjawi, R. Tai, J. Dollinger, M. Dawson, P. Boud, D & Bearman, B.  (2023) From authentic assessment to authenticity in assessment: broadening perspectives, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, DOI: 10.1080/02602938.2023.2271193.

Boud, D., & Molloy, E. (2013). Rethinking models of feedback for learning: the challenge of design. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 38(6), 698–712.  https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2012.691462.

Carless, D., & Boud, D. (2018). The development of student feedback literacy: enabling uptake of feedback. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 43(8), 1315–1325. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2018.1463354.