(2011) Mark my words: the role of assessment criteria in UK higher education grading practices. Studies in Higher Education, 36 (6). pp. 655-670.Downloaded from: http://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/1179/ Usage of any items from the University of Cumbria's institutional repository 'Insight' must conform to the following fair usage guidelines.Any item and its associated metadata held in the University of Cumbria's institutional repository Insight (unless stated otherwise on the metadata record) may be copied, displayed or performed, and stored in line with the JISC fair dealing guidelines (available here) for educational and not-for-profit activities provided that• the authors, title and full bibliographic details of the item are cited clearly when any part of the work is referred to verbally or in the written form• a hyperlink/URL to the original Insight record of that item is included in any citations of the work • the content is not changed in any way• all files required for usage of the item are kept together with the main item file. You may not• sell any part of an item• refer to any part of an item without citation • amend any item or contextualise it in a way that will impugn the creator's reputation• remove or alter the copyright statement on an item.The full policy can be found here. Alternatively contact the University of Cumbria Repository Editor by emailing insight@cumbria.ac.uk. This article seeks to illuminate the gap between UK policy and practice in relation to the use of criteria for allocating grades. It critiques criterion-referenced grading from three perspectives. T el e le tu e s f o t o u i e sities e e asked to thi k aloud as the g aded t o itte assignments. The study found that assessors made holistic rather than analytical judgements. A high proportion of the tutors did not make use of written criteria in their marking and, where they were used, it was largely a post hoc process in refining, checking or justifying a holistic decision. Norm referencing was also found to be an important part of the grading process despite published criteria. The autho s de elop the otio of tuto s sta da ds f a e o ks, i flue ed stude ts o k, a d providing the interpretive lens used to decide grades. The implications for standards, and for students, of presenting the grading process as analytical and objective are discussed.

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In this paper the author considers the positivist approaches in mainstream higher education assessment research. She contrasts this to emerging poststructuralist perspectives and goes on to report on a study into the assessment moderation practices in a higher education art department. In this research she explores the ways in which art and design lecturers talk about students' grades in moderation meetings and reports on the different ways that groups of lecturers co-construct meaning in relation to the practice of agreeing marks

This article reports on the ways that a group of third‐year undergraduate art and design students conceptualise the pedagogy they experience on their course. This study is part of broader research funded by the Group for Learning in Art and Design (GLAD) and the Higher Education Academy (HEA) that employs qualitative interviewing approaches to explore the ways that a small sample of art and design students studying in two English post‐1992 universities interpret and understand the questions in the National Student Survey (this is a questionnaire that UK students complete during the final year of their undergraduate studies). The analysis suggests that the students' conceptions of art and design pedagogy might be best understood as a form of ‘reverse transmission’ that places the students as active co‐producers of their learning. The study reflects on the centrality of project centred learning in art and design and explores the challenges concerning the nature and scope of the art and design lecturers' role, particularly in the context of the UK's increased student fee regime.

This document is the author deposited version. You are advised to consult the publisher's version if you wish to cite from it. Published versionORR, Susan (2010). 'We kind of try to merge our own experience with the objectivity of the criteria': The role of connoisseurship and tacit practice in undergraduate fine art assessment. Art, Design and Communication in Higher Education, 9 (1), 5-19.