1. Dr Gabriele Neher (University of Nottingham)
Thinking about assessment: formative assessments and anxiety: presentations and essay plans
Dr Gabriele Neher (University of Nottingham)

2. Mental ill health and Higher Education
An interim report on the Graduate Wellbeing Study from Student Minds has revealed that almost half (44%) of recently employed graduates from higher education are currently experiencing mental ill health, with 61% of those surveyed having experienced a mental health issue at some point in their life.
A recent NUS poll of 1,093 students found that almost eight out of 10 (78%) had experienced mental health issues over the last year – and yet less than half had sought support. Reasons given for not seeking support included not knowing where to go for mental health support at their college or university (33%) and being nervous about the support they would receive (40%). National Union of Students, 2015: All Party Parliamentary Group on Students briefing

3. The Stress-Vulnerability Model (Zubin et all., 1977)

4. Anxiety vs Anxiety Disorder
Anxiety is natural; an anxiety disorder is more severe, long- lasting, it interferes with the person’s work or relationships
Mixed anxiety and depression is actually the most common form of mental ill health at University; few mental health illnesses come on their own
Women are twice as likely to be diagnosed with anxiety disorders as men
Students often ‘pathologise’ and ‘self-diagnose’, so speak of depression and anxiety as illness when maybe their experiences are OK. But their choice of language determines their behaviour and their reaction to the task…

5. Assessment and Anxiety: increasing formative assessment
Good: students can get feedback and improve
Bad: increases number of deadlines

6. Case Study 1: Assessed Essay Plans
assessing-essay-plans-thinking-about-feedback/
Essay 40%, Plan 10%, Exam 50%
Prescribed format for the Essay Plan:

7. Year 3 Data set from Renaissance Luxuries Module (2013/14)
I had expected a much more uniform picture, of the blue essay plan being consistently marked lower than the (green) essay itself, but this test group of third years produced a much more varied response, with the largest percentage of students (41.7 %)  actually performing less well in the actual essay itself than they had done in the essay plan exercise; in one case, the difference was a very extreme 26% marks difference. The second largest group of students (37.5%) performed as I had expected, that is the marks improved between the essay plan submission and the actual essay itself; in most cases, the difference was between 3-5% improvement, but there were a couple of 10% + differences.  The last, and final group (20.3%) was the small group of students with identical marks for the essay plan and essay. So, 57.5% of students performed equally well or better after the submission of an essay plan, which was marked and returned with (arguable both formative and summative) feedback.

8. Case Study 2: Posters
2/09/teachingrenaissance-and-making-posters- a-guide-for-student-novices/
Basically, a poster can be an essay plan in disguise
Different way of articulating connections but: unlike writing a plan, a poster plan is not linear!
MindMaple etc- mind mapping software

9. Case Study 3: Presentations
To assess or not to assess?
Employability
Manage the condition and do not let the condition manage you
Learnable skill

10. Thank you and Questions?