Indeterminacy in the use of preset criteria for assessment and grading

Abstract

When assessment tasks are set for students in universities and colleges, a common practice is to advise them of the criteria that will be used for grading their responses. Various schemes for using multiple criteria have been widely advocated in the literature. Each scheme is designed to offer clear benefits for students. Breaking down holistic judgments into more manageable parts is seen as a way to increase openness for students and achieve more objectivity in grading. However, such approaches do not adequately represent the full complexity of multi-criterion qualitative judgments, and can lead to distorted grading decisions. Six anomalies in the ways assessors approach the grading task are identified, together with several likely contributing factors. Overall, the conclusion is that explicit grading models do not have as strong a theoretical foundation as is commonly supposed, and that holistic appraisal merits further investigation.

The Possibilities and Limitations of Assessment for Learning: Exploring the Theory of Formative Assessment and the Notion of “Closing the Learning Gap”

“…Recently researchers have demonstrated and elaborated on this idea as a further development of formative assessment (Crossouaurd, 2011;Dann, 2014;Hargreaves, 2013;Sadler, 2009). They suggest that the formative assessment process is not simple and mechanistic, such as those assumed in the notion of "closing the learning gap", but more complex and dynamic.…”

“…As Sadler (2009) and Crossouaurd (2011) point out, there are limits to what can be learned through giving and receiving preset criteria for assessment. The student can understand these criteria through a dialogical process with multiple exemplars, in which teacher and student discuss and reflect critically together.…”

“…They suggest that the formative assessment process is not simple and mechanistic, such as those assumed in the notion of "closing the learning gap", but more complex and dynamic. Sadler (1989Sadler ( , 2009 stresses that task quality and assessment criteria cannot be learned "by precept" (1989, p. 135) and students can understand these through practical example, in which teacher and student discuss their work critically. Crossouaurd (2011) also suggests examining the complexity associated with the way assessment criteria are understood and brought into classroom discussions.…”

Towards an integrated model for developing sustainable assessment skills

“…Transparent performance criteria can lead to better performance and selfassessments of students (Sadler 2009). But for assessment to be sustainable, students should not only be able to deal with preset performance criteria, but also learn to actively seek and formulate these criteria themselves and determine which criteria are important in judging their work, because in their future workplaces they will usually not be provided with lists of relevant criteria (Boud 2000).…”

Assessing students’ performance in software requirements engineering education using scoring rubrics

“…in the marking process [16] [18]. Furthermore, the shift towards the use of scoring rubrics is also driven by students' desire to plan and monitor their progress in line with teacher expectation [1].…”