Abstract:
Assessment of students is commonly seen as having two purposes: providing
students with feedback on their progress (formative), and making judgements about
an individual student's fulfilment of subject objectives (summative). Not so
commonly understood by academics however, is the degree to which students'
perception of assessment drives their learning. Many years of research have
highlighted the fact that students respond to their perception of assessment in terms
of what they learn and in the way in which they approach their learning. These
results have been discussed in a plethora of conference papers, journal articles and
books devoted to good practice in assessment. This work however, goes largely
unnoticed by the majority of academics, many of whom continue to design
assessment tasks which mirror their own experiences as students of large summative
examinations.
This paper describes a project which seeks to draw academics' attention to good
practice in assessment and to enhance their understanding of the impact of a range
of issues related to assessment design on student behaviour and approaches to
learning. The authors have developed an online assessment simulator, so that
academics can try out different assessment approaches, and see first hand the ways
in which students might respond. The simulator also demonstrates the links between
assessment design, and student learning and behaviour.
