The humble multiple-choice test is very widely used within education at all levels, but its susceptibility to guesswork makes it a suboptimal assessment tool. The reliability of a multiple-choice test is partly governed by the number of items it contains; however, longer tests are more time consuming to take, and for some subject areas, it can be…

The research described here investigated the quality and characteristics of peer feedback given on a draft piece of writing in the context of an undergraduate summative assignment. It also investigated whether the recipients made use of the feedback, with the aim of discovering whether some types of feedback were used in preference to others. The…

Recently published evidence of limited learning among American college students confirms the damage done when students, faculty and institutions pursue interests that conflict with the educational process. The "disengagement compact" in which faculty tacitly trade lenient workloads and grading for higher student evaluation of teaching…

In higher education, assessment integrity is pivotal to student learning and satisfaction, and, therefore, a particularly important target of continuous quality improvement. This paper reports on the preliminary development and application of a process of recording and analysing current assessment moderation practices, with the aim of identifying…

This paper explains the application of concept mapping to help foster a learning-centred approach. It investigates how concept maps are used to measure the change in learning following a two-week intensive undergraduate Marketing Principles course delivered to 162 Chinese students undertaking a Bachelor of Business Administration programme in…

The primary purpose of this study lies in the evaluation of what students acquire from studies abroad in the context of credit mobility, in terms of competence development and personal growth, compared with that gained by students completing their study or internship in their home country. A pre-post test design, with both an experimental group…

This study sought to determine the critical elements of an authentic learning activity, design them into an applicable framework and then use this framework to guide the design, development and application of work-relevant assessment. Its purpose was to formulate an effective model of task design and assessment. The first phase of the study…

The aim of this article is to contribute to the discussion on how examinations can be designed to enhance students' learning and increase throughput in terms of the number of students who sit, and pass, the course examination. The context of the study is a basic level political science course on power analysis, which initially suffered from…

Fieldwork training is a key component of several practical disciplines. In this study, students' peer assessment of fieldwork is explored as a method to improve their practical training. Peer assessment theories are first discussed. A framework for peer assessment of fieldwork is proposed, and the steps taken for preparation of students for…

Students in tertiary education are often faced with the prospect of writing an essay on a topic they know nothing about in advance. In distance learning institutions, essays are a common method of assessment in the UK, and specified course texts remain the main sources of information the students have. How do students use a source text to…

This study examines the impact of an assessment training module on student assessment skills and task performance in a technology-facilitated peer assessment. Seventy-eight undergraduate students participated in the study. The participants completed an assessment training exercise, prior to engaging in peer-assessment activities. During the…

This paper considers the possibility of gender bias in peer ratings for contributions to team assignments, as measured by an online self-and-peer assessment tool. The research was conducted to determine whether peer assessment led to reliable and fair marking outcomes. The methodology of Falchikov and Magin was followed in order to test their…

Owing to the increasing diversity of assessments in higher education, feedback should be provided to students in a format that can assist future and alternative work. This study aimed to assess the effectiveness of the Essay Feedback Checklist on future alternative assessments. Participants were assigned to one of two groups, one of which…

One of the most contentious potential sources of bias is whether instructors who give higher grades receive higher ratings from students. We examined the grade point averages (GPAs) and student ratings across 2073 general education religion courses at a large private university. A moderate correlation was found between GPAs and student evaluations…

Aligned assessment is a cornerstone of higher education curriculum design. Yet, it does not address the problem of how students learn "how" they should proceed when faced with a new assessment task. That teaching task is often left to the role of "feedback". This article examines changes to a first year law unit, introduced…