I spend a lot of time critiquing the way educational assessment works. In the interest of being pragmatic, I feel like I should try to suggest some things that educators can do without having to really change the system.
First, a principle worth clarifying: Formal assessment at school or university usually involves assigning students’ work a value—it could be a simple pass-fail, a broad score (e.g. 1 – 5), or quite large, as in the case of awarding points out of a total of 100. Here are some things I think should always feature in an assessment process, from the assessor’s side:
- Always (always!) explain the reasons for which the grade was not higher than it is—in an educational context, if this cannot be explained, the grade is not justified (the same is not necessarily true in other contexts).
- Spot-moderation is insufficient; for consistency of standards between markers through time, sharing of perspectives on the quality of students’ work should be as constant as possible within an assessment team.
- The stakes are highest for students on the borderline between passing and failing; so additional emphasis is often warranted on point 1 above.
- Let students know in advance how assessment processes actually work from the assessors’ side—this helps them to build empathy with assessors (handy if you have 100+ students and a team of assessors), and also lets them know what they can reasonably expect to receive in terms of feedback. Even better, involve them in a mock assessment process.
- If use of a rubric is mandated, start with a global appraisal of the work, produce an explanation of the grade (as in point 1), and only then proceed backwards to consider the criteria.