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ASLO Project Seminar 56
Assessment in Higher Education
University of London Institute of Education
18th October 2007
Participants: Alan Brown, Murray Butcher, Ann Hodgson, David James, Ewart Keep, Graham Welch, Susannah Wright, Tim Oates, Mary James, Paul Black, Paul Newton, Kathryn Ecclestone, Gordon Stobart, Wynne Harlen, Richard Daugherty.
Seminar programme
Papers: Three papers by Kathryn Ecclestone and colleagues plus a brief and the paper presented by the project team at the 2007 BERA Annual Conference had been circulated in advance.
Morning session
Paul Newton explained the origins of the project in the work of the Assessment Reform Group and the approach to the series as set out in the project team's proposal to the Teaching & Learning Research Programme.
Kathryn Ecclestone [link here to KE's slides] referred to the three papers circulated in advance that had drawn on evidence from three empirical studies – on GNVQ, on student attitudes and on improving formative assessment. She highlighted the concept of ‘learning cultures'. Discussion of reform in vocational education was dominated by assessment and qualification specifications, frequent reference being made to ‘standards' without the problematic nature of standards being acknowledged. The conflicts arising from attempts to accommodate the several distinct, and to some extent conflicting, purposes of assessment took on a particular form in vocational education. The plethora of stakeholders involved in the design curriculum and assessment was a significant contextual factor. Kathryn also drew attention to the often inadequate representation of cognition in subject domains in vocational education.
For the rest of the morning session participants discussed the question:
‘What can we learn about the interface between assessment and knowledge from the programmes of learning and student assessment in vocational education?'
Among the points put forward in the course of that discussion were:
- The ‘identity crisis' in vocational education.
- The constraints of a model of competence-based assessment that is a limited and limiting sub-set of criterion-reference assessment.
- Teachers have a central mediating role in relation to both curriculum and assessment.
- If ‘learning cultures' is to prove a helpful conceptual framework it will be necessary to clarify the distinct ‘layers of such cultures in any particular context.
- Parallels were drawn between the stereotyped assessment practices reported in vocational education and stereotyped coursework practices in schools.
- The surprisingly low profile of employers' expectations and requirements was commented upon.
- If assessment decisions depend on teacher/lecturer judgment how closely do the anticipated outcomes of a programme of learning need to be specified?
- Where does work and work experience fit within the framework for programmes of vocational preparation?
- There would seem to be a lack of articulation between vocational education and wider economic and social structures.
- Is the idea that assessment is an effective lever for change a fallacy?
- Generalising about supposedly ‘good practice' should be done with caution.
- There is a continuing lack of clarity in the UK as to what a general vocational education actually comprises and what purposes it serves.
- There are disappointingly weak links between higher level vocational education in HE and programmes in FE and schools in the same areas, e.g. business education.
- Where do the ‘standards' in vocational education programmes come from? They should focus explicitly on curriculum and pedagogy in relation to a particular body of knowledge.
- What counts as a ‘subject' in vocational education?
- It is unwise to generalise too much on the basis of programmes in business studies as these are often the default choice of students.
- Particular problems are observable when vocational education programmes are taught in the schools sector.
- What rewards are there, if any, in the labour market for students on vocational education programmes whose main goal is not entry into HE?
- Do some of the subjects taught in vocational education programmes have any serious claims to validity as subjects? If so, what are those claims?
- The meta-level policy agenda, such as that in the Leitch Review, is driving micro-level assessment practices.
- Boud's ‘double duty' of assessment could be usefully applied to the experience of assessment in vocational education.
- It would be helpful to clarify what is meant by the ‘purposes' of assessment – as impact of curriculum, impact of assessment, uses of results.
Afternoon session
In the afternoon session, after initial inputs from Paul Newton and Paul Black, participants discussed the following question in groups, reporting back to a final plenary:
Towards a conceptual framework. How can the experience of assessing learning in vocational education inform our conceptualising of the relationship between assessment and knowledge?
Paul Newton summarised the main points from the morning session. Paul Black reported on a recent conference in Thessaloniki and, in particular on a presentation about the CEDEFOP learning outcomes study that is analysing the use of learning outcomes in the education policies of EU countries.
Reporting back on the group discussions included the following points:
- Who defines the outcomes that shape students' experience? There is an enormous diversity of situations from those in which tutors really do define ‘their' outcomes to those in which top down outcome requirements are seen as hoops to be jumped through.
- The instrumentality of policy goals in vocational education ensures that definition of outcomes on many programmes is in terms of economically viable qualifications.
- The system is being managed in terms of: (a) the achievement of qualifications, (b) percentage of learners progressing to the next stage and (c) employment outcomes.
- What is the appropriate response to managerialist assumptions as to the nature and role of learning outcomes – define outcomes in those terms and add them in or adopt more loosely framed outcomes that allow for flexibility?
- The experience of vocational education in England was contrasted with that of much of mainland Europe where there are more effective linkages to the labour market, including incentive structures for students.
- Who is being assessed – teacher, institution or the individual student? The blurring of those distinctions is unhelpful.
- Assessment as a measure of individual learning is being lost in its use as a social check.
- There is an urgent need for a better sense of subject curriculum in vocational education built on cognition in subject terms. Are there lessons in this respect to be learned from HE?
- The validity of subject qualifications should be protected by defining a clear subject core to each qualification.
Papers Ecclestone, K. (2007), ‘Commitment, compliance and comfort zones: the effects of formative assessment on vocational education students' learning careers' Assessment in Education, 14 (3), 315-333.
Davies, J. & Ecclestone, K. (2007), ‘Straitjacket or springboard for sustainable learning?: the implications of formative assessment practices in vocational learning cultures'. Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference, London , September.
Ecclestone, K. (2006), ‘Assessment in post-14 education: the implications of principles, practices and politics for learning and achievement'. Report for the Nuffield Review of 14 to 19 Education, July 2007.
Daugherty, R., Black, P, Ecclestone, K., James, M. & Newton, P. (2007), ‘Improving the alignment of assessment to curriculum'. Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference, London , September.
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