Foundation Skills/The assessment cycle/The assessment process



Assessment is a cyclical process, starting with you as the teacher becoming familiar with the graduate profile for your programme. This can be found in the formal curriculum document. Once you have had a look, you can begin to think about how the assessments line up with the attributes that are described in the graduate profile, and other aspects such as the learning outcomes. Consider the stages of the Assessment Cycle, using the following questions to guide you.


 * Questions:
 * Graduate Profile: How do your assessment tasks contribute towards developing the graduate attributes of your students?
 * Course Outline or Descriptor: Does your course descriptor include clear learning outcomes, together with an overview of the content and assessment for your course?
 * Learning Outcomes: Do your assessment tasks align with the broad learning outcomes in the course descriptor?
 * Plan and develop assessment: Do your assessment tasks allow students to demonstrate their competence in relation to the learning outcomes? You may want to map out your assessment tasks against the learning outcomes (and maybe even the graduate profile).
 * Pre-moderation: Are your assessment tasks moderated by a peer before being administered to students? How formal is this process and who monitors it?
 * Administer the assessment: Are your assesment tasks fair, clear, transparent, valid, reliable, manageable, authentic? In addition, how are you held accountable?
 * Post-moderation': Are your assessment tasks and student evidence moderated by a peer (or external person/body) after being administered to students? How formal is this process and who monitors it?
 * Feedback: Do you provide sufficient and timely feedback to students about their progress? Is the feedback meaningful and does it help students to do better?
 * Reflective practice: Do you review your assessment tasks, your marking schedules, moderators' reports and student experience of the assessment tasks with a view to making positive changes to future assessment tasks or practices?