Second day of the Assessment and Feedback for Learning module began with a discussion on the purpose of assessment which is at least partly about gatekeeping and assessing fitness to practice, especially in subjects such as medicine. Expanding out from there we discussed how assessment reflects the needs and demands of wider society and how this has been changing in response to the marketisation of higher education.
There was an interesting side discussion at one point about implicit assessment and how this can distract students. One person talked about how this had manifested on their module, with students believing that there was a hidden quota on the number of students who were supposed to pass and fail. Rather than concentrating on the assessment task at hand they spend a great deal of time in discussions amongst themselves trying to work out this non-existent pass-fail ratio.
In the afternoon we discussed the differences between formative and summative assessment, and how to use assessment to achieve effective learning and learner gain. That, we concluded, comes best from formative assessments, but these take a lot of time and effort and exist in tension with students preference for summative assessment and preoccupation with grades, a possible result of the changing culture which marketisation has brought about.
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