Assessment practices
must reinforce the stated aims of a course; otherwise every lofty aim of
teaching is rendered null and void. Students learn very quickly which tasks get
credit, and these are usually the passing of factual tests. Students are
comfortable with familiar multiple choice questions and short answer questions
and generally do not wish to be extended beyond this mode. An aphorism is that
the only group more conservative than teachers is their students; however, a
good course is not necessarily one that is comfortable. An extensive revision
of the content of the medical course at my university took 2 years and involved
over a 100 members of faculty. The great day came when the new course began,
and it was a grand occasion with senior professors telling the audience how
much planning had gone into the new course. The planning was entirely for
content, although I had niggled the planners about assessment. I had an ‘‘I
told you so’’ moment when the first questions from the new students were ‘‘what
will be in the exams and can we see past papers?’’. There was no answer to be
given and exams were eventually set in the way they always had been.
‘‘Enhancing assessment in the biological sciences’’ is the title of an
extensive and well-funded project performed in Australia to develop assessment
resources for disciplines including zoology, botany, anatomy, biochemistry,
environmental science, genetics, and developmental biology [1]. To get to a
specific topic of interest such as biochemistry or online assessment, the query
box at the web site provides an express route. The collaborators on this
project are known to me as committed teachers, mostly of large first-year
groups, and professional education research academics. The project began with
interviews, roundtable discussions, and national seminars to allow staff and
students to describe their experiences with assessment. Examples of innovation
and effective assessment strategies were seen to be an outcome of reflection on
assessment practices. The survey concluded that assessment serves multiple
purposes in higher education and that no single type of assessment will
adequately serve all purposes. The particular strengths of each assessment type
is summarized by the project authors. Eleven categories of assessment were
identified and further aggregated into three groupings. (1) Assessment that
targets discipline-specific practice including presentations, research projects,
and practical assessment. (2) Assessment of collaborative learning including
group work assessed for participation and contributions plus peer and
self-assessment. (3) Traditional assessments including examinations, tests and
quizzes, written assignments and online assessment. The core information is
available for download as a substantial 52-page document that needs printing
and annotation. The roles of assessment are succinctly summarized as (1)
assigning a ranking, (2) encouraging honest student work, free of plagiarism,
(3) encouraging whole of course learning, and (4) providing for time and
cost-effective administration. A useful suggestion for online quizzes is to use
textbook-provided CD ROMs as a source of material for formative assessment. Guidelines
for using multimedia include that it should be engaging, appropriate,
high-quality, and integrated with the course. There is a lot that is obvious
here and a lot more that many of us should review to formulate better course
structures and assessment approaches. While content is the easy part of
reviewing a course, assessment is often the more deserving of attention.