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Assessment issues

Three issues to do with written assignments emerged from the student interviews:

  • the timing of submission deadlines
  • the clarity of assignment topics
  • the consistency of the assessment

Timing

Assignment clusters

Clusters of coinciding assignment deadlines in different courses are difficult to avoid, but can be particularly stressful for students at the end of semester if they also have semester-final exams to prepare for. If you can structure your course to avoid this, well and good; if not, some of the ideas in Helping students to plan their work may help.

Non-negotiable deadlines

To a Chinese student the practice of setting a submission deadline that is not only non-negotiable, but entails a penalty if it is not met, may be quite unfamiliar. Teachers who adopt this practice should ensure that their students are fully aware of the time constraints involved, and have some idea of why such constraints are justified.

Assessment, academic integrity and time management

Several studies show that cheating and plagiarism are more common amongst weaker students with poor time management strategies.... Designing in staging posts and requiring students to submit work for formative assessment will encourage forward planning. For example, asking in stages to see and initial a plan, a draft and a final product can be helpful because last minute panic may make plagiarism seem the only solution.

— Carroll & Appleton (2001)

Clarity of assignment requirements

Some students indicated that they had difficulty understanding the assignment topics set. This could be for either or both of two reasons:

  1. they were unfamiliar with the nature and purpose of the assignment task; and/or
  2. they had difficulty interpreting the language in which the task was presented.

The business of clarifying the first of these will be the easier if the wording of assessment tasks is as transparent as possible. For some suggestions on achieving this in setting both in written assignments and examination tasks, see Language in assessment tasks.

We know that students learn best when assessment is:

  • evenly timed
  • represents or simulates real life
  • the fear of failure is minimised
  • perceived by students as relevant and appropriate to their needs as learners

( Ramsden 1992, Entwistle et al 1987)

— UK Centre for Legal Education: Innovation in assessment Opens in a new window

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