Designing Assessment

Assessment and feedback are key parts of the learning process and good assessment design will enhance learning.

There are a number of ways to classify assessments but perhaps most useful is to think about formative and summative assessments.

Formative assessments are designed to guide students in their learning and help them progress in their studies. They provide ongoing feedback to students enabling identification of areas of strength as well as areas for development. Formative assessments often have no, or very few marks, associated with them, enabling students to make mistakes, knowing they will be supported to learn from them via timely and useful feedback.

Examples of formative assessments:

Online quiz
Draft research proposal for early feedback
Mindmap of key points from the topic

Summative assessments are designed to evaluate student learning, usually at the end of a period of study. Summative assessments often have high stakes and are used to test student learning against identified criteria and/or a required standard. As summative assessments often come at the end of a module, there are often no opportunities to immediately act on the feedback so feedback should justify how well the student has done in relation to the criteria as well as providing some feed forward information that the student could apply to future modules.

Examples of summative assessments:

Poster presentation
Dissertation
Group report

Authentic assessment
Assessment has a significant influence on student motivation and the ways in which students approach their learning. Meaningful assessment develops the students’ interests, motivations and encourages them to engage in their study to meet the learning outcomes. Assessments should be well designed across a programme of study to ensure the development of knowledge and understanding as well as intellectual, practical and transferable skills as identified in programme learning outcomes. Considering the University Graduate Attributes, as well as the specific attributes associated with the discipline, will aid in the design of ‘authentic’ assessments to support students’ employability and graduate careers.
Authentic assessment emphasises the practical application of tasks in real-world settings that relate directly to the discipline. They require students to use the same competencies/skills and attributes that they’ll need to apply in professional life.
Examples of authentic assessments:
- Simulation
- Business plan
- Pitch
- Presentation
- Exhibition
- Patient history
- Consultancy report
- Design specification
- Press article
Assessing Groups
If groupwork or Team Based Learning leads to group assessment, this should align with module or programme learning outcomes and have its purpose clearly explained to students. Assessment, particularly of individual contributions, must be fair and transparent. Staff can play a key role in helping to ensure that all students contribute to the team effort in a positive and supportive environment.
The Learning and Teaching Innovation Centre (LTIC) has worked with school staff to identify exemplars of best practice, what works for them, and their features and techniques :
- Allocate students to teams to ensure diversity. Group size is important – big enough for cross fertilization, but limited to prevent free loading – although particular roles/ size may be required, for example in media production;
- Introduce and explain the assignment, its timeline with any key stages, how teams should work together, issues of academic integrity, how peer assessment works, and how the final marks are calculated using transparent rubrics;
- Encourage students to discuss ground rules for how their team will operate, and possibly draw up an honour code (LTIC can provide guidance based on the compassion focussed pedagogy project);
- Ongoing peer review can help staff to check progress, provide feedforward and identify teams where intervention might be required if team cohesion has broken down. It’s helpful, and reassuring, to meet the teams, for example during timetabled tutorials;
- It’s helpful for teams to keep a record of meetings and for each student to keep a diary or log, which may or may not be assessed;
- Assess student contributions by any combination of peer evaluation, individual reflections and tutor moderation. Examples of different methods and rubrics for calculating marks are available from LTIC.
Assessment Criteria
Assessment criteria should be valid, fair and consistent, setting clear expectations for students. Accurate, simple and timely information on assessment tasks and procedures should be made available to students, staff and external examiners. Module sites should provide explicit information about the assessment tasks, the submission details and deadlines, the marking and moderation processes, as well as details as to when feedback will be provided.
Assessment criteria should be written in clear, accessible language which is free from jargon and very understandable. It might help to make a short video or audio recording for the assignment information outlining the assessment requirements and explaining how the assessment criteria will be used during the marking process.
Students need to know which learning outcomes are being assessed within which assignments and this should be clearly indicated within assignment briefs and on module sites along with the specific assessment criteria and marking scheme for the assignment as these may differ depending on the nature of the assessment (e.g. laboratory report, oral presentation, case study).
To help students engage with assessment criteria you might consider:
- Designing and embedding exercises into workshops and tutorials which enable students to work with the assessment criteria to help them understand what we are looking for when marking
- Designing a formative assessment so students can gain early feedback aligned with the assessment criteria which will help them prepare for the summative submission
- Providing links to specific resources to help students meet the assessment criteria

Top 10 Tips for designing assessments

1. Assess the learning outcomes	Identify the module and programme learning outcomes, the graduate attributes and the discipline specific qualities that the programme aspires to develop. Considering the designed learning activities and specific skills you hope to assess, ensure that your assignment design will assess the identified learning outcomes for the module.
2. Vary the assessment diet	One form of assessment is often overused in a module/programme or even within a discipline. Varying assessment methods enhances student skills, caters for individual abilities and can improve engagement with the task.
3. Ensure the assessment fits	Be aware of how the assessment task fits within the module, other modules in that year (ensuring appropriate levelness), and the programme as a whole. It is easy to design assessment tasks in isolation or for modules to undergo ‘drift’ as assessment activities change over time. Do not drift away from the intended module and/or programme learning outcomes.
4. Focus on student development	Assessment tasks should encourage effective learning behaviours (i.e. deep not surface, understanding not just memory). Designing formative tasks across weeks and/or topics should facilitate, for example, the learning of complex concepts; the practicing of skills; the development of slowly learnt literacies. Formative activities enable students to make mistakes, share misconceptions and reflect on their own learning.
5. Consider the authenticity of the assessment	Designing an assessment that relates to a real world task or discipline specific attributes (such as simulation, role play, placement assessment, live projects, debates) should make the activity meaningful to the student, and therefore be motivating as well as developing employability skills and discipline specific attributes.
6. Support personalised learning	Giving students some choice in the topic or mode of submission (e.g. video/podcast/report/poster) can make the task relevant to the individual and accommodate different learning preferences. The student can choose something they are personally interested in, which will be motivating, will help develop independent learning and may provide opportunities for creativity.
7. Design the feedback.	When designing the assignment, consider how (e.g. oral, written, peer etc.) and when, you will provide feedback. Also think about the design of subsequent assignments to ensure opportunities for the students to act on the feedback.
8. Check the validity of the assessment.	Ensure that the assessment task truly assesses what it claims to assess. If you are planning to assess oral communication skills do not set a reflective essay discussing oral communication. Communicating the requirements of the assessment task clearly within the assignment brief is essential.
9. Design out plagiarism	Reusing essay titles or setting general questions where material is easily accessible on the internet could lead to plagiarism (accidental or purposeful). Consider assessing the process of completing the assignment as well as the final product.
10. Consider staff and student effort	Effective assessments should distribute the students’ effort across the study-period and topic areas. Assessment guidance should communicate clear expectations of the ‘typical’ time that the assignment should take. Assessment design should also take into account staff time. There should be adequate time for teachers to create and deliver feedback in ways that support student learning.