Graded Assessment – myth or fact?

A presentation by Keith Harrison. Teaching & Learning Adviser,

Chisholm L&DGkeith.harrison@chisholm.edu.au

• Harry Houdini and his

• world famous Chinese• water torture trick• (Circa 1910).

• More difficult than• Graded Assessment? • •

Chisholm QMS 402-Assessment

• 5.7 Graded Assessment In VET courses, graded assessment is intended to provide access to pathways that allow students to pursue further education as part of their lifelong learning. In Higher education courses, graded assessment provides a measure of excellence in the pursuit of academic standards.

“Competency-based assessment could be used to yield a differentiated score (“differentiated performance”) in addition to the recognition of competence…”

- Australian Journal of Education Volume 51, Issue 1 2007 Article 3 @ http://research.acer.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=aje (accessed 25.01.10)

‘Differentiated Performance’-DP

• seeks to measure student performance in ’real-world tasks’ and scenario-based problems. Rather than the passive involvement of traditional testing, these ‘authentic’ measures require demonstration of important learning goals, not merely indirect indicators. Assessment tasks based on DP reflect the current understandings regarding the best practices in the area of motivation, cognition, learning theory, and instruction. In addition, the tasks encourage divergent thinking and allow multiple pathways and perspectives for solving problems

Foyster (1990) argues that assessment in competency-based programs must

be criterion-referenced with the criterion being the competencies upon

which the program is based.@

http://www.reproline.jhu.edu/english/6read/6training/cbt/cbt.htm#Evaluation (accessed 26.01.10)

 

“Criterion referencing required the development and use of scoring rubrics that were expressed in the form of ordered, transparent descriptions of quality performance that were specific to the unit(s) of competency; underpinned by a theory of learning”

 Gillis and Griffin (2005) @ http://www.edfac.unimelb.edu.au/arc/PDFs/2005-1340.pdf (accessed 26.01.10)

Rubrics

• A rubric is a scoring tool for subjective assessments. It is a set of criteria and standards linked to learning objectives that is used to assess a student's performance on assessments.

• When students are apprised of grading criteria from the start, they can be more involved in the process of working toward success. In addition to helping students understand how the assignment relates to course content. (Wikipedia 27.01.10)

Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning Theories (assessment)

Lower

order

Higher

order

Constructive alignment

Learning outcomes

Teaching and learning activities

Assessment

Learning outcomes state what you want students to be

able to do

Teaching and learning activities

actively engage students in

learning how to do these things

Assessment tasks validly

measure whether

students’ can do these things

[measures of learning or for learning?]

Biggs, J. & Tang, C. (2007). Teaching for quality learning at university (3rd ed.). Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press/McGraw-Hill

Manage students’ expectations from the beginning …

At a minimum …

• Describe assessment tasks for the unit - – How tasks relate to the most important

learning outcomes– How tasks relate to students’ future

discipline/professional needs• Describe how students will be marked/graded

(criteria and standards) e.g. marking sheet/rubric– What are the things teachers are looking for

that students will be marked on? … the criteria– What is the quality of these things they are

looking for? What do students have to do to get a pass … a distinction? … the standard(s)

Learning by approximation!!!

“a continual approach or coming nearer to a result; as, to solve a question or problem or an estimate of what is required and a ‘rough idea’ how long it might take”

- www.definitions.net/

None of this matters unless we can engage students with written

descriptions

Exemplars

“exemplars convey messages that nothing else can”

- Royce Sadler, Professor of Higher Education Griffith University

Examples

“Rather, it appears that examples are more effective when they help students draw on and analogically extend existing valid physical intuitions in constructing a new conceptual model

of a target situation. To help students in this constructive effort, first, the examples used must be understandable and believable to the students...”

- David E. Brown, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, College of Education, University of Illinois

Skills & Knowledge:

- visible competencies

- easy to observe

- easy to measure

I nterpersonal skills

Team player

Attitudes

Values

Achievement

Motivation

- less visible competencies

- less easy to observe

- less easy to measure

The ‘I ceberg Model’ of assessing competency

Feedback that focuses on how students can go about improving their skills is

more usable and valued by students …

Walker, M. (2009). An investigation into written comments on assignments: Do students find them usable? Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 34(1), 67-78.

Summing-up…

Graded assessment requires the following considerations:• criterion referenced • professional development of assessors

• provision of policy and/or guidelines • provision of exemplars of assessment tools • grading schemas (scoring rubrics) • validation/moderation processes

Who said anything about questions????

References

• Australian Journal of Education Volume 51, Issue 1 2007 Article 3 @ http://research.acer.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=aje

• Williams & Bateman 2003@ http://www.ncver.edu.au/research/proj/nr0008.pdf

• Gillis and Griffin (2005) @ http://www.edfac.unimelb.edu.au/arc/PDFs/2005-1340.pdf

• http://vetinfonet.det.wa.edu.au/home/• http://www.tedi.uq.edu.au/downloads/Bloom.pdf