Transparency Isn't Spoon-Feeding: How a Transformative Approach to the Use of Explicit Assessment Criteria Can Support Student Self-Regulation

Abstract

If little care is taken when establishing clear assessment requirements, there is the potential for spoon-feeding. However, in this conceptual article we argue that transparency in assessment is essential to providing equality of opportunity and promoting students' self-regulatory capacity. We begin by showing how a research-informed inclusive pedagogy, the EAT Framework, can be used to improve assessment practices to ensure that the purposes, processes, and requirements of assessment are clear and explicit to students. The EAT Framework foregrounds how students' and teachers' conceptions of learning (i.e., whether one has a transactional or transformative conception of learning within a specific context) impact assessment practices. In this article, we highlight the importance of being explicit in promoting access to learning, and in referencing the EAT Framework, the importance of developing transformative rather than transactional approaches to being explicit. Firstly, we discuss how transparency in the assessment process could lead to "criteria compliance" (Torrance, 2007, p. 282) and learner instrumentalism if a transactional approach to transparency, involving high external regulation, is used. Importantly, we highlight how explicit assessment criteria can hinder learner autonomy if paired with an overreliance on criteria-focused 'coaching' from teachers. We then address how 'being explicit with assessment' does not constitute spoon-feeding when used to promote understanding of assessment practices, and the application of deeper approaches to learning as an integral component of an inclusive learning environment. We then provide evidence on how explicit assessment criteria allow students to selfassess as part of self-regulation, noting that explicit criteria may be more effective when drawing on a transformative approach to transparency, which acknowledges the importance of transparent and mutual student-teacher communications about assessment requirements. We conclude by providing recommendations to teachers Balloo et al. Transparency Isn't Spoon-Feeding and students about how explicit assessment criteria can be used to improve students' learning. Through an emphasis on transparency of process, clarity of roles, and explication of what constitutes quality within a specific discipline, underpinned by a transformative approach, students and teachers should be better equipped to selfmanage their own learning and teaching.

Feedback after OSCE: A comparison of face to face versus an enhanced written feedback

“…We feel that it meets the requirements of effective feedback that in uences learning such as knowledge of appropriate standards by both learners and teachers, comparison of one's own work with these standards and enabling actions to close the gap between the two (22). Explicit assessment criteria can directly pave the way for selfregulation in learning to occur where the transparency provided by rubrics can clarify students' expectation and allow them to experience greater perceived control and con dence (23). It is important however, to ensure that students get the opportunity to clarify misconceptions as feedback is more powerful when it addresses faulty interpretation leading to the development of e cient strategies for processing and understanding the material (1).…”

Shaping Perceptions of a Policy Instrument: The Political–Administrative Formation of Learning Outcomes in Higher Education in Norway and England

“…This analysis of previous literature identified work on HE leadership, HE measurement and accountability, curricula design, pedagogic studies, and changing teaching and learning practices in HE, as identifying and describing various ways in which LOs might lead to changes in practice as they are taken up and worked with by actors within degree programmes. There is also a more recent body of work looking at the impact of specific kind of approaches to using LOs in teaching, learning, and assessment, which may offer ways of addressing challenges and risks identified in earlier literature on LOs role in HE teaching and learning (Boud, 2017;Balloo et al, 2018). While this section is structured around different levels and types of activity, there are overlaps between these that make it hard to disaggregate LO's role and influence in these various areas separately; LOs developed for use in certain levels or processes seem to often shape or influence other applications of LOs.…”

“…While this form of transparency helped more learners stay on and complete their qualifications, this came at the cost of a narrowing learning and the learning experience (Torrance, 2007). Balloo et al (2018) challenge the idea that instrumentalism and narrowing is an inevitable result of greater transparency. They argue that the key is how being 'explicit' is interpreted and practiced, and that efforts to enhance transparency must proceed in ways which explicitly take account of differing conceptions of learning, to ensure responsibility is shared out between students and teachers as intended.…”

“…They can, and have, been put into practice in divergent ways, enacting differing ideas about the type of learning pursued, and the way LOs are expected to be linked to measurement. LOs can offer ways of empowering students and fostering deep learning (Biggs, 1998;Balloo et al, 2018) or encouraging compliance and instrumentalism (Torrance, 2007). Many proponents warn misguided or narrow implementation may be counter-productive, encouraging fragmentation or instrumentalism (e.g.…”

“…By highlighting the questions of 'what kind of learning do we mean' and 'who should decide what success looks like' these ideas also make it much harder to conceal tensions and ambiguities in LO enactments that 'transparency' and SCL ideas contain. There is already a range of work, particularly by Boud (2017), Tai et al (2018, and Balloo et al (2018), describing LO strategies focused on being specific about what is expected of students by involving them in teaching and learning processes that develop shared understandings of what relatively loose 'expected' LOs mean in practice, or should be assessed.…”