Assessment Principles for Quality Student Learning

Assess­ment is an essen­tial dimen­sion of our learn­ing expe­ri­ences. In addi­tion to deter­min­ing and cer­ti­fy­ing the degree to which learn­ing out­comes have been met, assess­ment “directs atten­tion to what is impor­tant. It acts as an incen­tive for study. And it has a pow­er­ful effect on what stu­dents do and how they do it.” (Boud & Falchikov, 2007, p. 3). The mean­ing and scope of “assess­ing stu­dent learn­ing” have evolved as our under­stand­ing of how assess­ment prac­tices can moti­vate and engage learn­ers, and how reflec­tion and feed­back on these expe­ri­ences can have a sig­nif­i­cant impact on learn­ing (Fink, 2013; Weimer, 2013).

Assess­ment is an impor­tant, if not the most impor­tant, activ­i­ty of qual­i­ty teach­ing and stu­dent learn­ing.

Most issues, con­cerns and com­pli­ca­tions with teach­ing and learn­ing often come back to some­thing not work­ing with the for­ma­tive and/or sum­ma­tive assess­ment meth­ods.

To help instruc­tors make evi­dence-informed deci­sions and adapt their cur­rent strate­gies to enhance stu­dent learn­ing this web­page and PDF pro­vide instruc­tors with a com­pre­hen­sive overview of key prin­ci­ples.

The prin­ci­ples emerged from a lit­er­a­ture review con­duct­ed in 2016 by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Calgary’s teach­ing and learn­ing cen­tre using the fol­low­ing key phras­es: assess­ment prin­ci­ples in high­er edu­ca­tion; post-sec­ondary prin­ci­ples of assess­ment; assess­ment the­o­ry in high­er edu­ca­tion; and stu­dent-focused assess­ment in high­er edu­ca­tion.

The 29 prin­ci­ples were enhanced with recent research and North Island Col­lege spe­cif­ic poli­cies to pro­vide a one-stop doc­u­ment for instruc­tors and depart­ments to con­sult and fre­quent­ly ref­er­ence.

Here is the list­ing of the 29 prin­ci­ples. See this web­page and PDF hand­out for more details. How many do you con­sid­er in design­ing stu­dent learn­ing expe­ri­ences?

1. Assess­ment and Eval­u­a­tion Mean Dif­fer­ent Things
2. Three Aspects of Assess­ment: AS, OF and FOR
3. Focus on a Com­pre­hen­sive Design with Few to No Timed Tests
4. Authen­tic Assess­ment Reflects Real­is­tic Learn­ing
5. Assess­ment is Devel­op­men­tal
6. Assess­ment is a Con­tin­u­ous Process
7. Assess­ment is a Learn­ing Part­ner­ship Between Instruc­tors and Stu­dents
8. Con­sid­er Sep­a­rat­ing Grades from Feed­back – Alter­na­tives to Grades
9. Trust Stu­dents
10. Don’t Make Assess­ment and Eval­u­a­tion Com­pli­cat­ed
11. Be Trans­par­ent, Fair and Clear with Assess­ment Process­es
12. Align Learn­ing Out­comes with Assess­ment and Instruc­tion
13. Assess­ment Feed­back is for Always Improv­ing Learn­ing
14. Pro­vide Mul­ti­ple Assess­ments for Feed­back
15. Do Not Grade Par­tic­i­pa­tion – or Penal­ize Stu­dents for Late Assign­ments
16. Fos­ter Con­fi­dence Rather than Anx­i­ety
17. Use Var­ied Assess­ment and Eval­u­a­tion Meth­ods Across Var­ied Learn­ing Domains
18. Incor­po­rate Self-Assess­ment Activ­i­ties
19. Engage Stu­dents in Peer Assess­ment
20. Be Account­able for Indi­vid­ual Stu­dent Learn­ing – Be Care­ful with Group Eval­u­a­tions
21. Assess Process – Not Just Prod­uct
22. Respect Cul­tur­al and Indi­vid­ual Diver­si­ty
23. Instruc­tors are Always Learn­ing About Assess­ment
24. Gath­er Assess­ment Evi­dence for Enhanc­ing Prac­tice
25. Devel­op Effi­cient and Effec­tive Prac­tices
26. Use NIC Grade Scale and Sub­mit Grades on Time
27. Fol­low NIC Pol­i­cy 3–33 on Eval­u­a­tion of Stu­dent Per­for­mance
28. Share Assess­ment Plan via Course Out­line
29. Pro­mote a Cul­ture of Assess­ment