Influencing critical engagement with assessment criteria Darrin Beattie, Careers Service Curriculum Development Officer Coherent Curriculum themes: assessment and feedback; student engagement

Career Development Modules (CDM) Suite of 4, year long, 20 credit work based learning modules for levels 5, 6 & students from a range of academic schools representing all three faculties Part of Project 2012 Assessment for learning Transparency in assessment processes

Intervention: annotations Student use of annotations within CDM assignment 1 to identify specific passages that they believe are the strongest evidence for each assessment criterion.

Intervention’s aim and objectives Raise lower quartile of CDM marks by: Promoting critical engagement with assessment criteria “Testing” student understanding of assessment criteria Generating more effective feedback Evolving assessment criteria

Assessment criteria

Assignment 1: Exemplar. student annotations and related feedback Related passage within feedback :...there is limited evidence of analysis in your discussions of goals, key issues and actions and this will improve by adopting a more critical and evaluative approach e.g. did you consider what may be causing teacher attitudes so as to ensure that how you made your offer to support sporting activities was sensitive to such issues? Related passage within feedback : “...there is evidence of both primary and secondary research in your assignment but when evident, has not been suitably developed as examples of applied learning e.g. what specifically did you learn about leadership through observing your supervisor that you then applied when leading small groups”? Passage from feedback referring to unconscious competence?:...Learning RX is a better example of applied learning in that you have clearly related the new knowledge acquired from this source (learning styles) and presented an explicit example of your applying this knowledge (forces activity). The highlighted passage relates general learning Learning RX relates an explicit example of applied new knowledge...

Unit reflections Students are critically engaging with the assessment criteria prior to submission Commonly misunderstood criterion easily identified Student selected passages for annotation suggest unconscious competence in evidencing criteria Easier to write formative feedback

“Whispered” student feedback Glad it was not worth any marks but very useful and unusual I understand the need for a word limit but it was at times difficult to explain yourself to the fullest extent within the word limit It helped me grow from last year’s assignments and fully integrate each of the graduate skills in my role as a student tutor

Student feedback from MEQ Likes: “The increased ability to evaluate self- performance”; “the level of learning independence. I also enjoyed the assessments”; “Improves critical analysis and other skills”; “Focussed on assessment criteria”; “Improved focus and drive in general towards work and studies as a result of this module”; “The modes of assessment were good” Dislikes: “Inflexible marking standard”; “Extremely specific marking scheme”; “The marking of the essay was very strict”; “The marking scheme is too "tick box" style”; “The formality of some examples, I struggled to understand some points”; “The assessment was repetitive and lacked clarification as to how to score higher marks” “I don't think I could give three reasons, I love this module!”

Review of aim and objectives No discernible effect on CDM lower quartile mark, but intervention: Has promoted critical engagement with assessment criteria Does “test” understanding of assessment criteria Produce more effective feedback Will develop the assessment criteria

Issues Assessment criteria appearing in non- assessed annotation rather than assessed script Perception of “jumping through hoops” “Blunderbuss” approach to annotations render information meaningless

Developments Annotation minus rationale More “effective” pitch to students Feedback relating effective as well as less effective examples to specific criterion Deeper analysis of impact