1. Assignment Processing
Dr Helen Gale &
Dr Debra Cureton
Introduce ourselves
1.15 – Introductions + overview Slide HG
1.20 – Overview of DiSA findings Slide 3 DC
1.30 – Assignment briefs – method Slide 4 DC
1.35 – What is a successful assignment brief? Slide 5 HG
- possible assignment brief template Slide 6
What works: retention & success Slide 7 DC
1.55 – Assignment processing Slide 8 HGz
- the literature
2.05 – What do you do currently? (just a couple of minutes with partner)
2.10 – Assignment processing: a suggestion Slide 10 HG
2.15 – Design a session plan for assignment processing HG
2.35 – Feedback DC
2.45 – Conclusions

2. Outline of activities Brief overview of DiSA findings
Assignment briefs
What Works: Retention & Success
Assignment processing
Helen – what we are going to do this afternoon.
Focus on Assignment Processing – i.e. not so much the brief itself, but what you and your students do to unpack it

3. Brief Overview of DiSA Findings
Academe
Cultural and Social Capital
Relationship
Psychological
Processes
Debra
The findings tell us what academic staff and students believe are barriers to academic success.
There were four main areas that our finding fell into:
Relationships,
Academe factors,
Psychological factors
Cultural and Social issues.
Relationships
Both lectures and students tell us that the quality of the relationship between students and lecturers is important in student attainment. Relationships might not be equal and can effect the disparity between student attainment
Academic Issues
Academic system issues that might affect student attainment
Psychological process
Unconscious processes, such as stereotyping & biases, that can affect attainment or cause disparities in attainment
Cultural Capital
Staff made no comment about this
Students told us that they didn’t really understand degree classifications and why a good degree is important. More importantly, they revealed that the students’ parents do not understand degree classification, what is required of a student at university and the implications of getting/not getting a good degree on employability/future study.

4. Assignment Briefs - Method
Top percentile of performing modules
i.e. modules with > 90% student pass rate VS
Bottom percentile of performing modules
Compared the assignment briefs
Language
Quality of information
Structure
Style
Comprehension
Debra
Three schools provided their L4, L5 and L6 module data for student achievement
Each School also provided level four, five and six undergraduate assignment briefs for this investigation.
In each school the assignment briefs from all the modules with 90% or above pass rate were selected.
The assignment briefs from the lowest performing modules were also selected.
The selected assignment briefs were then assessed for:
language usage,
clarity,
quality of information,
structure,
style
comprehension.

5. Characteristics of successful assignment briefs:
Language is appropriate
to a student audience
to the subject matter
Fit for level
Logical Structure
Information in all one place
1 – 1.5 sides of A4
Clear, succinct, no jargon, informative
Includes information on:
Product
Process
Useful examples
Marking criteria
What markers will give points for/ are looking for
Helen
Highest performing modules
The assignment briefs for the highest performing modules contained a number of common features. All of these assignment briefs were task economic and is fit for level. They contained information on the assessment product required and the assessment process of generating the required product. The majority of the assignment briefs provided useful examples, including examples of the product required or examples of the subject of the product. All of these briefs contained a comprehensive marking criteria and the majority of these also included information about what the markers will be looking for and/or giving points for. The briefs also indicated the literature or resources that needed to be drawn on to successfully complete the assignment.
All of the assignment briefs were
clearly and succinctly written;
between one side and one and half sides of A4.
Assignment briefs also had a logical structure that was easy to access and understand.
The language used in the assignment briefs were written with a student audience in mind,
The language was appropriate to the subject but did not contain jargon
The tone of writing was helpful and friendly.
Finally information to complete the assignment is all in one place.
Lower performing modules
The assignment briefs for the lower performing modules were often lengthy, confusing and contained complex instructions. For example students were asked to write about ‘one or all of the following topics’, but no information is given to the impact of choosing one or all had on the grade.
The assignment briefs contained information about the assignment process or assignment product, but these were never presented together.
Marking criteria were also included in the briefs, but these were limited to information about how to achieve an A or a D.
The language used in the lower performing assignment briefs was not student facing and in some cases the information was taken directly from the MSTs. In some cases there were a lot of jargon used and language that was not fitting for the level of assignment or student experience.
In several cases, these assignment briefs referred to the learning outcomes in ways that were confusing for the student. For example the brief might say you will implement Learning Outcome 1 whilst doing x, however the learning outcomes were not number coded and therefore could not be matched to the activities.
In a lot of cases these assignment briefs contained some of the information about what was required within an assignment and then listed where further information to complete the assignment would be found. This complicates the understanding what is required for an assessment.

6. University of Wolverhampton Assignment Brief
Combining learning outcomes, assessment criteria and performance descriptors in assignment briefs: an example of an assignment brief templates
University of Wolverhampton Assignment Brief
School ………………………………………..Module Code …………………… Module Title ……………………………………………..
Learning outcomes (exactly as they appear in the module guide):
In order to achieve this module you should be able to:
……………………………….
……………………………......
…………………………………..
……………………………….....
Activity (in student-accessible language)
To complete this assignment, you should ………………………….
Assessment criteria (to pass this module) e.g.
This assignment should be a maximum of 3000 words / 10 minutes
At least 3 different examples should be given
Marking
You will be marked on a % scale, using the University Performance Descriptors (see below)
Feedback Feedback will be given via ……..
Some Schools have designed their own Assignment Brief templates, so that students get used to seeing the same information in the same place, written in the same style.
The University has also produced University Performance Descriptors for all L3 – L7 work.
(This is just an example or suggestion. The University is NOT insisting that this should be done.)

7. What Works: Retention & Success
Unpacking the assignment in class
Negotiated Assessment
Systematic Assignment Process
Graduate Intern feedback on assignment brief
Generalised assignment feedback
Clarity of the assignment brief
Student evaluation (CORA)
Expectations
Belongingness
Debra

8. Assignment processing: the literature
O'Donovan, B., Price, M. and Rust, C 'Know what I mean? Enhancing student understanding of assessment standards and criteria'. Teaching in Higher Education 9:
Norton, L 'Using assessment criteria as learning criteria: a case study in psychology'. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 29:
Lizzio, A. and Wilson, K 'First-year students’ appraisal of assessment tasks: implications for efficacy, engagement and performance'. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education 38:
O'Donovan, B., Price, M. and Rust, C 'Know what I mean? Enhancing student understanding of assessment standards and criteria'. Teaching in Higher Education 9:
‘ Arguably, in the past, the promulgation of academic standards and assessment criteria was much simpler. Assessment communities were more stable, homogeneous and close-knit (Ecclestone, 2001). Academic programmes were consequently less fragmented and course components ran over longer time periods in which understanding could be transferred between staff and students through shared experience at a more leisurely pace. Assessment judgements were based on the tacit professional expertise of teachers, an elite ‘guild’ of professional assessors, whose professional judgement was mysterious in nature, and inaccessible to the layman.’ 326
‘Staff interpret the meaning of words such as ‘synthesis’ or ‘analysis’ differently from individual to individual, begging the question, if even we as ‘experts’ cannot always agree on the meaning of commonly used criteria, how can we expect ‘novice’ students to mirror our interpretation?' 327
Use of exemplars and student assessment to improve student attainment.
BUT ………. see Norton, L 'Using assessment criteria as learning criteria: a case study in psychology'. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 29:
Since the main purposes of assessment are still conceptualized by most lecturers to certify and to grade students (Samuelowicz & Bain, 2002), it is not surprising that students tend to use assessment criteria in a strategic, marks-orientated approach. Like Miller and Parlett’s (1974) cue seekers, any students use assessment criteria in an almost formulaic way to help them get the best mark possible; the link with using ROGs is clear. In this sense then, assessment criteria might actually detract from the engagement with learning that we are hoping to encourage. There is a danger that by over-emphasizing assessment criteria, students will become too concerned with wanting ever increasingly precise definitions and explanations of the criteria. Typical questions are ‘How many journal papers should I include in my essay’ and ‘Am Iallowed to use bullet points in the essay’? This is one of the reasons why some tutors are reluctant to show students examples of previous essays for fear that they will
believe there is a ‘standard essay’. Too great a focus on the assessment part of the task, then, can have the paradoxical effect of encouraging a ‘mechanistic’ (Marton & Saljo, 1997) rather than an independent, meaningful and constructivist approach to learning. Assessment criteria therefore pose a problem; they are necessary in order to help students know what is required in the assessment task but, at the same time, they may encourage an over-dependence on tutor guidance and a concentration on the mechanics of the task rather than a meaningful engagement with the learning process.
Lizzio, A. and Wilson, K 'First-year students’ appraisal of assessment tasks: implications for efficacy, engagement and performance'. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education 38:
...." it is students’ perceptions, rather than any objective features of tasks, that are crucial in shaping the depth of their engagement." (389)
A series of qualitative studies have investigated students’ perceptions of the assessment characteristics that they report as positively influencing their learning and engagement. McDowell (1995) found that perceived fairness was particularly salient to students’ perceptions of both the substantive validity and procedural aspects of an assessment task. Sambell, McDowell, and Brown (1997) extended this early work and identified the educational values (authentic tasks, perceived to have long-term benefits, applying knowledge), educational processes (reasonable demands, encourages independence by making expectations clear) and the consequences (rewards breadth and depth in learning, rewards effort) of assessment that influence students’ perceptions of its validity.

9. What do you do? Working in groups describe:
How you introduce an assignment/assessment to students?
How do you encourage students to process assignment briefs/assessments?
How do you deal with issues about assignment briefs/assessments?
Misunderstandings
Confusion

10. Assignment processing: a suggestion
Colleagues have used the following steps to support this process: - Put students in pairs or small groups - Ask them to read the brief and to tell each other what they think they are being asked to do - From this exchange, ask students to identify what is clear to them and what needs to be clarified. Ask them to write these down on post-its (two different colours ideally)and to display them in the room. - Ask students to get up and look at post-its so that they can compare comments - On the basis of a reading of the  post-its, the teacher groups the concerns and offers comments accordingly - Teacher posts a FAQ on VLE to deal with all points of clarification
Helen

11. Over to you…. In pairs/small groups:
Develop a processing session that is sensitive to your subject and students’ needs.
You may wish to consider how you include:
How to develop better learning and peer relationships
The introduction of academic issues
Raising social capital
How to limit psychosocial barriers
Helen
Both to wander round pairs / groups

12. Feedback & Conclusions
Debra to receive feedback
Helen to scribe.

13. Contact Details Dr Helen Gale – h.gale@wlv.ac.uk
Dr Debra Cureton –