Visiting scholar shares insight on assessment practices

Designing assessment that puts students at the centre of learning in higher education was the key message  shared by University of Queensland (UQ) visiting scholar, Merrilyn Goos, during a visit to the University on the 15 and 16 August 2007.

Associate Professor Goos was awarded a Carrick Associate Fellowship in 2006 to develop the assessment leadership capacities of UQ academic staff, specifically in relation to criterion-referenced assessment.

She acknowledged the importance of designing and implementing good assessment and the effect it has on students.

'It's the thing that matters most to students in their university experience,' Associate Professor Goos said.

'Students can recover from the effects of poor teaching but poor assessment practice has long term consequences for them.'

Associate Professor Goos gave three separate presentations as part of her visit including a workshop with Associate Deans and Heads of Schools.

'The talk to Associate Deans and Heads of Schools involved sharing the findings from my Carrick Fellowship and getting input on what I was finding out.

'It also involved comparing the assessment landscapes of our institutions in terms of similar issues, strategies and working out what we can learn from each other.

'It appears that we're concerned about the same things: helping staff understand what constitutes good assessment and balancing heavy workloads and large classes with the desire to implement good assessment.'

Associate Professor Goos said she was impressed with the commitment to teaching and learning at USQ.

'I was really impressed by how committed staff here were to good teaching and assessment and how the Associate Deans have informal ways of getting together to discuss assessment.

'I've really enjoyed this visit and I've been very impressed with the people I've worked with here. Knowing the work that's been done by the assessment working group makes me happy to contribute to that effort.'

As part of making assessment more beneficial to students Associate Professor Goos said teachers need to specify desired learning outcomes, assessment criteria and standards and to design assessment tasks that encourage a deep approach to learning.

'In learning and teaching we contrast the shallow and deep approaches to learning.

'If students engage with concepts in superficial ways and try to learn by memorising that is more shallow learning whereas in deep learning they are motivated, engaged, oriented towards understanding and using higher order thinking skills. Being able to analyse and think critically is very important in the learning process.'

Associate Professor Goos also reinforced the importance of timely feedback that points out students' strengths and weaknesses and explains how to make improvements for future learning.

'Criterion-referenced assessment means when assessing students we tell them in advance ‘Here is what counts as good quality, here are the range of performance benchmarks'. Students are in the know and don't have to guess and know what they have to do. They can understand what is required and are better informed from the start,' she said.

'This method can also help staff give better feedback on their teaching. The benefits for staff are in encouraging them to think about what counts as good quality work.'

Coordinator of the visit LTSU Coordinator (Academic Learning Skills) Janet Taylor said the visit was beneficial to hear about different assessment strategies which encouraged discussion between staff.

'In the university-wide session we had about 90 staff participating. It was great to have everyone in one group. It encouraged reflection on what we do, what we do well and what to improve on,' Associate Professor Taylor said.

'The other session focused on particular groups such as the LTSU and Associate Deans, looking at what Merrilyn has done in her Carrick Project and what we can do at USQ to continue supporting staff in planning assessment.

'We will make the discussions available online at the LTSU website to enable everyone in the university to have access to this important material.'

Media Contact: Jane Urquhart USQ Media +61 7 4631 2559