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Assessment in Education, Vol. 6, No. 3, 1999

Litigation and Learning: tensions in

improving university lecturers’

assessment practice

KATHRYN ECCLESTONE1

& JOANNA SWANN2

1Department of Education, University of Newcastle, Joseph Cowen House, St. Thomas

Street, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, UK & 2School of Education, University of

Sunderland, Hammerton Hall, Gray Road, Sunderland SR2 8JB, UK

ABSTRACT Current debate about assessment in higher education raises educational and

political issues. Lecturers who wish to make their assessment more reliable and rigorous, as

well as more effective in improving students’ learning, need more than technical help to do

so. This paper reports ® ndings from an action research project which focused on assessment

practice at the University of Sunderland, UK. It highlights tensions between genuine

educational concerns to improve practice and more instrumental pressures, for example, to

defend one’ s assessment practice from challenges by students, colleagues and external bodies.

It is argued that improvement, rather than mere change, will require the commitment of

people who possess intimate day-to-day contextual knowledge of assessment, and who

recognise its educational and political complexities. The ® ndings highlight two areas for

further research: ways of inducting and involving students in an `assessment community’ ,

and institutional staff development designed to improve assessment practice.

The Assessment Context

Public debate about assessment policy in the higher education sector of the UK

currently focuses on the de® nition of levels and degree standards, the issue of

whether traditional degree classi® cations should be retained (Higher Education

Quality Council, 1996), and the problem of how to make assessment more valid and

reliable in credit-based systems. In this context, assessment in institutions of higher

education in the UK is likely to be increasingly in¯ uenced by externally set criteria,

and profound changes in practice are anticipated. This is in keeping with policy

directions in the post-compulsory sector in general and the national curriculum for

children aged 5± 16 in state-maintained schools in England and Wales, both of which

re¯ ect themes of explicit centralised de® nitions of outcomes and criteria, together

with external systems of inspection and evaluation.

Current debate about assessment in higher education is embroiled in broader

educational concerns about the power of assessment to in¯ uence learning both

positively and negatively. At the same time there is a political imperative to create

377

ISSN 0969-594X printed/ISSN 1465-329X online/99/030377-13 Ó 1999 Taylor & Francis Ltd

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378 K. Ecclestone & J. Swann

coherence and progression between different sectors and institutions. Moves to use

assessment and accreditation systems in order to ensure greater coherence are also

evident in European policies for lifelong learning, and are re¯ ected in concerns to

raise levels of participation in formal learning in further and higher education.

Throughout western Europe, in the US, New Zealand and Australia, these debates

are increasingly re¯ ected in political intervention in the forms of assessment used.

Thus, outcome-based assessment, credit-based and modular systems, and moves to

align different assessment regimes are becoming more prevalent. At the same time,

it is widely recognised that formative and diagnostic assessment potentially have a

powerful role in motivating learners to be more effective in and committed to their

learning. This is leading to growing tension (again, particularly in the countries

mentioned) between support for selective norm-referenced assessment and the

current interest in criterion-referenced assessment which is regarded as more equi-

table, accessible and motivating. (For detailed analysis of current trends see: Gipps,

1994; Green, 1995; Wolf, 1995; Broadfoot, 1996; Ecclestone, 1996a.)

Following the Dearing Review of higher education in the UK (1997), changes to

the role of the external examiner, de® nitions of outcomes in degrees, and greater

coherence between credit systems are likely, although the implications of these

changes have not been widely debated (see Brown, 1998). The ® rst report of the

National Advisory Group for Continuing Education and Lifelong Learning (Fryer,

1997) similarly calls for greater coherence in assessment between further and higher

education. Whether change is initiated within universities or imposed by govern-

ment agencies, there are apparent variations in the interpretation of degree

classi® cations across subjects and institutions, and confusion among lecturers and

students about the purposes of assessment. Indeed, there is a general lack of debate

in universities in the UK about issues related to teaching, learning and assessment

(Dunne et al., 1997). It is perhaps unsurprising that few institutions have a coherent

approach to implementing assessment. This absence of debate about the wider

context for change, and a lack of coherent procedures within institutions, mean that

university lecturers rarely receive formal induction into an `assessment community’ .

In addition, the literature on teaching, learning and assessment aimed at univer-

sity lecturers raises issues about policy pressures on student numbers and the

consequences for assessment practice. The more practically-oriented literature also

addresses educational aims to make assessment more effective in promoting learning

and fairer to students. (See, for example: Brown & Knight, 1994; Gibbs, 1994;

Knight, 1995; Brown et al., 1996.)

Much of the advice offered concerning the use of better formative feedback to

improve students’ learning, or ways of streamlining lecturers’ marking, tends to be

technical. Among other things it urges that more consistent use should be made of

explicit learning outcomes and assessment criteria, combined with a greater empha-

sis on formative feedback, self- and peer-assessment, and standardised marking

schemes. Authors who produce this practical advice clearly aim to make assessment

fairer, more transparent and rigorous. It is also apparent that their advice has been

informed by educational beliefs and research ® ndings about the potential power of

diagnostic and formative feedback in the learning process. In addition, there is a

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Litigation and Learning 379

pragmatic recognition that lecturers are under great pressure to provide high-quality

marking and feedback despite an increase in the numbers of students to assess.

These beliefs, coupled with a recognition of resource pressures, are reinforced by the

extension to higher education Ð through the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) Ð of

political initiatives to base learning on explicit descriptions of levels, learning

outcomes and assessment criteria (Dearing, 1997; Higher Education Quality Coun-

cil, 1997). As Brown (1998) shows, a system which the Higher Education Quality

Council saw as a means of helping universities to regulate themselves may become

a means for external regulation by the QAA.

The complexity of assessment policy and its wider context are rarely discussed by

university lecturers. When they do consider assessment issues, it is usually in the

context of formal structures such as assessment boards and semi-formal discussion

with colleagues. This re¯ ects a tendency, prevalent in universities, to adopt ad hoc

approaches to assessment issues and practices at programme or individual lecturer

level. As an illustration, recent external examiner feedback on programmes with

which the authors are familiar raised issues which it was felt staff needed to address.

These issues re¯ ect broader concerns generated by research:

· What types of formative and summative feedback should students be given?

· Is there a coherent and consistently applied policy (within modules and across

modules and programmes) with regard to: assessment criteria, marking schedules,

moderation procedures, speci® c and general feedback given to students?

· What is the role of second marking during a programme of continuous summative

assessments and in ® nal summative assessment, and what form should it take?

In addition, the following issues have been raised by individual lecturers at the

university but outside the project:

· What role do stated assessment criteria and descriptions of levels play in marking

and in feedback to students?

· How can we design and use assessment criteria to encourage better student work?

· How can we encourage students to read written (formative) feedback and use it

to improve their subsequent work?

· How can lecturers make more productive use of time spent on assessment?

Although these questions were generated in the context of discussions at the

University of Sunderland, it appears that few, if any, universities in the UK have

resolved the issues raised. It is also evident from Placier (1993) that some of the

tensions which emerged from the project have parallels in the US, and are likely to

be mirrored in other national university systems which are attempting to widen

access and raise levels of achievement through more ¯ exible types of formal

certi® cation and better formative feedback.

The Project Context

This paper explores assessment issues arising from an action research project at the

University of Sunderland. The project involved 11 lecturers from four different

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380 K. Ecclestone & J. Swann

Number of

Number of students taking Whether

lecturers involved module where assessment Level module leader

in school teams* practice was modified of module included in team

School A 4 78 Level 2 ÏSchool B 2 180 Level 1

School C 2 5 Masters ÏSchool D 2 103 Level 2 Ï

*The paper’ s second author was a member of one of the teams. The paper’ s first author is not

included in the figures under this heading.

FIG. 1. The scale of the project.

subject areas (schools) (A, B, C and D). It was initiated by the authors of this paper,

and was funded, between January and July 1997, from central staff development

resources allocated for research across the university into teaching, learning and

assessment.

At the outset of the project, related research was underway in the university’ s

School of Education: assessment issues in the vocational curriculum (Ecclestone,

1996a); how lecturers and students learn degree standards (Ecclestone, 1996b); and

students’ and lecturers’ attitudes towards and uses of assessment feedback in higher

education (Ding, work in progress). Other assessment initiatives at the university

include a Teaching and Learning Fellowship on self-assessment and student motiv-

ation, and the work of the Quality Support Unit Levels Group, established to de® ne

criteria for levels of learning across different degree programmes. The research

discussed in this paper was designed to complement the existing initiatives and

provide an opportunity for more lecturers at the university to develop their under-

standing and skills with regard to assessment.

The authors recruited participants to the project from the university’ s Certi® cate

in Education programme (a part-time teacher education quali ® cation for new

lecturers at the university); six of the project lecturers were either current or recent

students on this programme. In total, eight of the project lecturers were new to

teaching in higher education [1].

The lecturers grouped into four teams, one in each subject area (school); the

teams each chose to focus on one module from their respective schools (see Figure

1). The teams worked independently to plan and implement change in assessment

practice within their schools, and met as a group on three occasions to: formulate

each team’ s research problems; evaluate interim ® ndings; and highlight implications

for both the adopted action research methodology and the improvement of assess-

ment practice in higher education. (See Swann & Ecclestone, 1999, for a detailed

account of the project’ s methodology.)

The project’ s over-arching problem was: How can we improve lecturers’ assess-

ment practice to (a) ensure maximum consistency in the grading of student assign-

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Litigation and Learning 381

ments, and (b) provide feedback which is more effective in improving the quality of

students’ work? Each of the teams responded in a different way, and four distinct

practical problems emerged:

· How can we provide detailed descriptions of grading criteria for 78 students and

offer better written feedback to a large number of students through a standardised

form based on the criteria? (School A)

· How can we learn more about student responses to feedback on written assign-

ments in order to develop future assessment procedures which will help students

to improve the quality of their work? (School B)

· How can we use formative feedback on oral presentations throughout the module

in order to help students improve the quality of their work? (School C)

· How can we validate changes to assessment procedures by referencing students’

opinions? (School D)

Issues raised by the project lecturers concerning the impact of formative assessment

on learning are located within the wider debate about assessment in higher edu-

cation (outlined above). Similar issues have been raised by research into formative

assessment in the national curriculum for children aged 5± 16 in England and Wales

(see, for example, Torrance, 1993, Gipps, 1994, and Black & Wiliam, 1998).

The paper analyses the project’ s ® ndings in relation to three key areas: student

involvement in, and perceptions of, assessment; staff perceptions of tensions in the

process of improving their own practice; implications for further research.

Tensions in Assessment

The 11 project lecturers were aware of the political and educational tensions in

assessment, and the limitations of technical advice, albeit without necessarily being

familiar with the relevant literature. Six of the lecturers had, however, explored these

issues in the context of the university’ s Certi® cate in Education programme. All of

the lecturers were clearly motivated by educational concerns; in particular, they

wanted to help students improve the quality of their work through more effective

assessment practice. School A’ s team of lecturers, for example, asked the authors of

this paper, as co-ordinators of the project, to help them design more effective ways

to (a) provide large numbers of students with better formative feedback, and (b)

help students increase their understanding of the role of assessment in improving

learning. This initiative generated extended discussion about the underlying educa-

tional rationales for changing assessment practice. However, more instrumental

pressures to change assessment practice were also evident in the project.

Lecturers in universities are faced with increasing numbers of students for whom

(so they are told by some institutional managers and the assessment literature) they

should provide `meaningful’ feedback. Such pressures are compounded in the new

universities by credit accumulation and transfer schemes, accreditation of prior

learning, and work-based assessment. These assessment processes are complex and

place lecturers under additional pressure (Trowler, 1997). At the same time Ð and

despite political and institutional rhetoric to the contrary Ð there is the enduring

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382 K. Ecclestone & J. Swann

legacy of a norm-referenced classi® cation system. Given that students are increas-

ingly concerned to achieve a `good’ classi® cation (that is, 2:1 or better), the

combination of grading and more explicit criteria for de® ning the grades encourages

them to challenge and question the judgment of their assessors.

The competing demands for improved assessment practice create confusion and

insecurity for experienced and novice assessors alike. This phenomenon has been

observed by other researchers (see, for example, Placier, 1993, for a US context),

and such tensions became evident as our project progressed. During the process of

formulating research problems (outlined in detail in Swann & Ecclestone, 1999)

they were evident in the humourous semi-cynical banter engaged in by colleagues

from the different schools. At two later sessions, designed to review the project’ s

progress, a similar tone enabled these tensions to be explored.

From observations at the project meetings in which lecturers reviewed progress

and shared ® ndings, it can be argued that, in an organisational culture where

fundamental educational principles and political imperatives to change lecturers’

practice are rarely debated, there is a discrepancy between espoused theories and

theories-in-use (Argyris & SchoÈ n, 1974). Espoused theories are publicly stated,

formally recorded beliefs; in this project, these public beliefs were ® rmly educational

(for example, the desirability of providing equitable feedback to help students

improve their work). In contrast, theories-in-use are (according to Argyris & SchoÈ n)

those beliefs held by professionals which are revealed implicitly only through

practice, and which often contradict espoused theories. Argyris and SchoÈ n (1974)

argue that a crucial factor in enabling such discrepancies to surface is an open and

blame-free organisational culture. It seems that problem-based action research can

create this climate Ð albeit temporarily .

The project also revealed other underlying beliefs about the need to improve

assessment practice (for example, to defend one’ s assessment decisions from change

by colleagues or from challenges by students). Arguably, these beliefs are created

and reinforced by the effects of resource limitations, growth in student numbers, a

culture which increasingly sees students as customers, and a competitive job market

which puts students under considerable pressure to achieve good grades.

All three teams working on assessment feedback experienced dif® culties. In

particular, while technical advice about providing better descriptors of grading

criteria was undoubtedly useful, it could not help lecturers to deal easily with some

of the unanticipated cultural and institutional outcomes of changes in assessment

practice. These tensions are explored below.

Students’ Perceptions of Assessment

Research into assessment has shown that students must internalise notions of

standards and criteria if they are to take responsibility for improving their work

(Gipps, 1994; Winter & Maisch, 1996; Ecclestone, 1996b). This process requires

them to become part of an assessment community in which they share with lecturers

the aim and processes of improving the quality of their work. The project highlighted

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Litigation and Learning 383

impediments to creating the kind of assessment community implied by this research;

such dif ® culties are ignored in much of the rhetoric about `empowering’ students.

School A: providing detailed assessment criteria and effective standardised written feedback

In School A’ s project, educational concerns were combined with resource pressures:

the need to improve the quality of feedback to 78 students without over-burdening

staff. In response to their request for assistance (mentioned earlier), one of the authors

worked with colleagues from School A to: outline and discuss the potential value of

formative assessment with students; formulate more explicit descriptors of the skills

and abilities re¯ ected in each degree classi® cation; produce a more ef® cient way of

providing detailed feedback on students’ work than had previously been the case.

Despite the underlying educational aim (to help students improve their work), it

was interesting that, in the awareness-raising session, a minority of students was

hostile to attempts to improve the work of the cohort by making grading criteria more

explicit. Students who were accustomed to receiving high grades stated their belief

that an opaque norm-referenced system increased their chances of doing well at the

expense of their peers (although they did not put it in these terms!). They recognised

that competition in a dif ® cult job market meant that the goal of ever-higher standards

and grades for more students was, from their point of view, undesirable. They were

therefore sceptical about the bene® ts of these changes to assessment practice (for an

account of a similar experience, see Placier, 1993). So too Ð but for different

reasons Ð were the less con® dent students who regularly received low grades. They

did not believe that formative assessment could help them to improve: bad experience

of assessment at A-level, and a perceived lack of constructive feedback from lecturers

outside the project, made them cynical about the aims of the research.

A surprising feature of discussion with students in School A was that students who

regularly received low grades articulated best the potential role of formative assess-

ment in learning, and the negative effects of poor quality feedback. It was apparent

that students who understand the potential of formative assessment do not always use

it or use it effectively. A signi® cant number of students in School A Ð approximately

one third Ð said they did not believe they could improve their work, despite their best

efforts. The image they had of themselves, as failing students, seemed to have been

established by their low A-level grades. The scale of this response and its apparent

heartfeltness was a surprise to staff taking part in the project.

It appeared that an important dimension to students’ reactions to the project in

all four schools was their view of themselves as outside the assessment process. This

observation had resonance in the ® ndings of other schools, where the issue emerged

of establishing, and then somehow `managing’ , students’ expectations of assessment.

School B: learning about students’ responses to feedback

The perception that students tend to be outside the assessment community was

reinforced by student responses in Schools B and C. In order to locate assessment

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384 K. Ecclestone & J. Swann

feedback more ® rmly at the centre of the learning process, School B’ s lecturers

offered students an opportunity to respond, via a questionnaire, to written feedback

on assignments, and then receive one-to-one clari ® cation of the grade and the

rationale for giving it. One aspect of this research was to discover whether part-time

and full-time students had different needs or views about feedback.

Of 65 students who were personally handed the questionnaire, very few took

advantage of this offer of one-to-one discussion. Fifty-eight agreed with their grade,

and 11 (three of whom had, in answer to an earlier question, agreed with the

appropriateness of the grade) felt they deserved a higher grade. Twenty-three

students had expected a lower grade. Sixty-two students thought the lecturers’

feedback on their work was helpful, though they were reluctant to take advantage of

an offer of further feedback.

School B’ s policy of returning assignments via the school of® ce, in order to deal

with the management of large numbers of scripts, makes the process of giving

written feedback more impersonal. While this is an understandable response to

resource pressures, it inadvertently reinforces the feeling of students that they are

outside an assessment community. This situation is compounded by increased

pressure on staff contact time, larger groups of students, and the fragmented nature

of many modularised programmes. When students are unhappy with comments or

a grade, they often ® nd it dif ® cult to engage lecturers in discussion about their work.

Interestingly, of the 16 students who responded to the open-ended questions at

the end of the questionnaire, 11 were part-timers. This response seems to echo

earlier research into how part-time and full-time students internalised degree stan-

dards (Ecclestone, 1996b). It was apparent in both our project and the earlier

research that part-time students were more likely to request feedback than full-time

students (who ostensibly had more opportunities for interaction with lecturers).

With regard to dif® culties in developing assessment communities, it is important

to point out that the two School B lecturers taking part in the project were employed

on hourly contracts, and were therefore at the margins of their school’ s assessment

community.

School C: using formative feedback to help students improve their work

The existence of cross-university modules, taken by students from different schools,

is a growing phenomenon in higher education. This phenomenon fragments the

homogeneity of groups of students and inhibits the development of an assessment

community of lecturing staff. The involvement of part-time and full-time students in

a modular programme is an added dimension to the problem of how to identify and

manage students’ varied expectations about the purpose and role of assessment in

learning. In the context of a master’ s level module, the project’ s School C lecturers

set out to use frequent face-to-face formative feedback regarding the quality of oral

presentations; this was done in order to encourage students to be more re¯ ective and

critical about their own work. In previous years it seemed that feedback had not led

to an improvement in students’ work. However, despite a more systematic approach

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Litigation and Learning 385

to feedback adopted during this project, there was no signi® cant improvement;

speci® cally, the less con® dent, less motivated students appeared to make no prog-

ress.

In Schools C and A, moves to improve formative assessment raised questions

about how the educational aim of helping students to improve the quality of their

work could become con¯ ated with the more instrumental aim of helping students to

achieve higher grades. These aims, though not incompatible, are not synonymous.

It became clear during the course of the project that, despite lecturers’ attempts to

explain the aims and intentions underlying changes to assessment practice, students

found it dif ® cult to conceive that they had an integral role to play.

The skills involved in using formative feedback, and the idea of moving beyond

the prevailing notion of assessment as something `done to’ students for summative

purposes, are complex. Any initiative to develop formative assessment will be

affected by the cultural and social expectations of lecturers and students in their

current roles, and by their past educational experiences. The project demonstrated

that helping students to internalise the standards implicit in assessment criteria, and

become actively involved in assessment, is no simple matter; it is not enough merely

to change one or two aspects of assessment practice.

In three of the schools it was apparent that students were unclear about how

formative feedback could help them. In parallel research at the university, students

gave clear reasons for not getting involved in processes such as peer- and self-assess-

ment. They also appeared to be confused by con¯ ict between the summative and

formative purposes of assessment (Ding & Ecclestone, 1997).

School D: involving students and external examiners in changes to assessment

In School D, the lecturers set out to engage students in the development of the

module’ s assessment procedures. They sought to bring about improvement in an

implicit culture in which students do not expect to participate actively in assessment

(this culture was similarly noted in the other schools). As in the undergraduate

modules in other schools, the number of students was large, i.e. 103.

One of the aims of the module was to foster independence and self-re¯ ection

while developing understanding about professional issues and roles. The lecturers

saw assessment as an important strategy for promoting these qualities in students,

but recognised that a high ratio of students to staff, emphasis on summative written

work, and tight marking deadlines, all militate against formative feedback and the

development of student self-assessment to improve learning.

As part of a process to justify proposed improvements in assessment practice

(subsequently supported by the external examiner), students were asked to respond

to questions about current procedures and proposed changes. Students overwhelm-

ingly supported a proposal to decrease the weighting for the assessment of written

work in favour of weighting group oral and visual presentations (60 of the 66

students who completed the questionnaire). It should be noted, however, that

students taking the professional programmes, of which this module is a compulsory

element, generally have very good presentation skills. For the majority of students,

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386 K. Ecclestone & J. Swann

increasing the weighting of the module assessment in favour of the presentation is

likely to result in a higher aggregated mark.

Staff Perceptions: litigation or learning?

At the beginning of the project it was apparent that all 11 lecturers were keen to

make at least one aspect of their assessment practice fairer, more consistent and

more positive in its effect on student learning. They were motivated, as we have

argued, by educational principles, even if they did not possess in-depth knowledge

of underlying conceptual thinking or the practical techniques which would support

them. Yet, in attempting to improve their assessment practice, lecturers became

increasingly aware of pressures to use these improvements to `protect’ their practice.

They felt that improvements in practice would enable them both to defend their

judgments against challenges by students and institutional managers, and counter

the inclination of colleagues in their respective schools to ignore assessment prob-

lems.

Concern about degree standards, a general rise in the number of upper seconds

awarded, a growth in the recruitment of students, and dwindling resources, were

factors which led to the setting up of the Dearing Review (1997). However, though

project lecturers shared the general professional concern that current assessment

practice should not inadvertently contribute to grade drift, this was countered by a

more cynical view that awarding higher grades is, implicitly, a way of avoiding

unwelcome challenges from students (this dilemma is acknowledged by Placier,

1993).

The social power and status of assessment was demonstrated by students’ anxiety

over grades in School A. Also, a female colleague in School B reported being

physically assaulted by a student who did not receive the grade he felt he deserved.

Although this incident occurred outside the project, it was felt by the project team

to be indicative of the high stakes, both political and social, of assessment based on

grading.

Such tales are, of course, prevalent in many higher education institutions, but staff

perceptions of their own experiences, as well as those of colleagues, are important in

socialising them into particular practices and beliefs. This paper suggests that there

is an evident tension between espoused theories about educational reasons for

improving practice which appear to be neutral and value-free, and theories-in-use

which are often revealed during informal conversations and the swapping of experi-

ences. There is also a growing perception that lecturers need to change their

assessment practices to avoid litigation (whether formally or informally pursued).

Assessment practices adopted to help students improve their learning also protect

lecturers against challenges about grade decisions, institutional pressures to raise or

lower grades, and potential defensiveness or low expectations by students with low

motivation or a perceived history of poor achievement.

The idea of protection against litigation is not merely cynical. It was clear that, as

project lecturers became more con® dent about how changes to assessment could

potentially enhance both their professional practice and students’ learning, their

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Litigation and Learning 387

ability to defend good practice (and identify bad practice) increased. They were also

motivated to continue trying out new ideas. Seven of the original members of the

project team joined an extension to the project (which began in September 1997).

Conclusion

Assessment in higher education will continue to be beset by political, educational

and social tensions, particularly while it continues to be used to rank and grade

students’ ® nal degree results. However, although there are pressures to remove

grading and adopt pro ® les of achievement, such moves are unlikely Ð given the

experience of outcome-based assessment in National Vocational Quali® cations and

General National Vocational Quali ® cations Ð to result in tension-free assessment.

New debates will arise Ð for further discussion, see, for example, Edwards and

Knight (1995) and Ecclestone (1999).

Though the literature on improving assessment practice (cited earlier in the

paper) is realistic about pressures resulting from increased student recruitment and

modularised assessment, much of it appears to overlook the complexities of induct-

ing and socialising staff and students into an assessment community. The ® ndings

of the research reported in this paper suggest that efforts to involve students more

actively in assessment will need to go beyond small-scale technical changes initiated

by motivated individuals. The research also draws attention to the differing needs of

full- and part-time students and staff, and high and low achieving students. Most

importantly, the rhetoric of empowering students is belied by complex tensions

between the formative and summative roles of lecturers who must act both as

gatekeepers and facilitators of formal learning.

The project was extended into a second academic year. Its subsequent continu-

ation will depend on a ® rm institutional commitment to professional development.

The nature of this commitment is important.

The project highlights the need for institutional managers to recognise wider

political factors (both micro and macro) which affect lecturers’ and students’

assessment practice. In particular, they need to acknowledge that barriers to the

creation of an assessment community of staff and students undermine the potential

of formative assessment to improve learning. They should not ignore pressures on

lecturers which lead them to focus on `survival ’ strategies at the expense of broader

educational concerns (see, for example, Trowler, 1997). Differences between the

dispositions of `novice’ and `expert’ professionals should also be taken into account

(see Eraut, 1995, and Ecclestone, 1996b).

In short, the project’ s ® ndings illustrate that injunctions to lecturers to adopt

technical changes to practice are, in themselves, insuf® cient to promote improve-

ments in assessment. The authors assert, on the basis of discussion in this paper,

that the problem, `How can we help students and staff to become an integral part

of an assessment community?’ , should be a research priority.

Institutional initiatives need to be problem-based (Swann, 1999). The adopted

methodology should acknowledge the fact that improvement rather than mere

change requires the willing participation of individual lecturers, that is, people who

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388 K. Ecclestone & J. Swann

possess intimate day-to-day contextual knowledge, including an understanding of

those aspects of the situation which are not easily measurable, or even readily

observable.

Further research at the University of Sunderland has involved the testing of

® ndings from the initial project (Swann & Arthurs, 1999), the generation of debate

about the wider tensions which these ® ndings illustrate, and the development of a

problem-based methodology for the purpose of staff development.

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to their nine colleagues for their involvement in the project

and comments on an early draft of the paper. They also acknowledge helpful

feedback from two anonymous referees.

Note

[1] `Newness’ and familiarity with one of the authors, through her teaching on the Certi® cate

in Education, may have played an important part in their willingness to participate in the

project.

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