1. Moderation for Fair Assessment in Transnational Learning and Teaching
Gavin Sanderson, Shelley Yeo, Michelle Wallace, Carmela Briguglio, Parvinder Hukam-Singh, Thavamalar Thuraisingam and Saadia Mahmud
University of South Australia, Taylor’s University College, Curtin University of Technology, Southern Cross University
Preliminary data
Key research concerns
Project Aims
Interviews and focus groups:
Onshore and offshore campuses of participating universities;
Business, engineering, communication
Undergraduate and postgraduate programs
International coordinators, unit coordinators, academic and general (support) staff.
How notions of ‘equivalence’ and ‘comparability’ play out in the design, implementation, and moderation of assessment in TNE in terms of:
The types of assessment tasks and moderation activities in TNE courses compared with those in the same courses in Australia;
Offering guidance and solutions to address contextual issues in the TNE environment that impact on the use of various assessment tasks and post hoc moderation activities compared with the same courses in Australia;
The induction and other professional development activities and resources which exist to help Australian and TNE partner staff
Identify key processes, principles and issues associated with a range of moderation practices in a variety of transnational teaching modes.
Identify and promote good practice across disciplines in processes associated with moderation of assessment from both quality assurance and quality control points of view.
Results—Conceptions of moderation
Results—Relationships and Tensions
Ensuring Standards, Being Fair and Controlling & Checking
“Validity, reliability, consistency … just making sure that in assessing what you want to assess and being fair to students in various classes over time and across locations.”
“… a process where we are looking for equivalence between cohorts; no one is advantaged or disadvantaged. It’s a form of quality control.”
“… is not an end product. The process starts at the beginning developing the skills and abilities of the tutors, developing the partner to mark in line with our university’s standards.”
“… to ensure the same quality and standards…of the delivery of the unit and how it is being assessed.”
Trust vs control
“It takes some time to get that trust…but once you get the trust, everything is very easy.”
“…one of my unit coordinators…always asks for suggestions, and so we sort of work together for a certain part of the unit.”
“We find that often our grades are, ‘Please reduce your marks across the board by 5%’…What does some lecturer sitting in Australia know about my cohort?”
Collaboration vs isolation
“And the same goes for the questions sets, we share. Sometime they ask me and sometimes just I offer it to them…In most cases for me it is 50:50.”
“I think that it would be good to get feedback from them about our marking … maybe they can just make a comment on how we are doing so we can get the feedback from there, I think that would be good.”
“…usually I just wait for the because, I don’t disturb them, they have their own work…”
Deliverables
Online, downloadable toolkit for involving the whole teaching team, including partner organisation staff, in assessment moderation practices.
Collaboratively authored glossary of TNE terms.
Results—Moderation in practice
Results
Practices are variable, usually post hoc & often impromptu
Reported practices include:
Collaborative setting of assessments; Marking guides; Quantitative or qualitative rubrics; Pre-marking of samples; Remarking of samples (variations of this); Cross-marking; Comparing marked work or score distributions (common).
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