More of a "Have you thought about...?" than a "How to...", this text offers a menu of ideas for conducting assessments of student work in higher education. The authors believe that how we assess our students has a profound effect on how our students learn and what they learn. Therefore, the professoriate must guard against assessment systems that promote short term memory, information recall and surface learning. To that end, the authors, three university professors in England, have grouped into ten chapters over 500 tips on assessment.
The topics addressed by chapter are: developing strategies and structures for assessment; managing your assessment; learning through assessment; assessment quality control; methods of assessment ; traditional exams and vivas (although there was no explanation as to what a viva is in the text, this writer surmises that it is similar to the oral defense); multiple choice questions and responses; assessing independent learning; self, peer and group assessment; and assessing competence and transferable skills. Though this listing may seem trite, the tidbits of humor interspersed throughout the suggestions and the format of short statements or questions followed by two to seven sentences of explanation make it an easy read.
Each chapter can stand alone and thus this would make a good reference piece for those interested in thinking about new assessment techniques. There are no recipes given to try, no exemplars to follow but if one already is familiar with the assessment techniques discussed, there are some pertinent points to ponder raised.
The fact that the text does not include specifics was troublesome. For example, in the section on assessing dissertations it is stated that "there are computer programs to help students monitor their own progress" but the names and sources of those programs are not included in the text nor the list of suggested readings. Some of the vocabulary words are not translated for cross-cultural use. For example the manner in which the word script is used implies that the author is describing a technique of grading papers written by students..."put the marks in a different place to the scripts. Then should any disaster befall you..there is the chance that you will still have the marks even if you don't have the scripts any longer".
While most of the tips are from the perspective of a faculty some of the suggestions were student-oriented. For example, one tip is to set up deadlines for assignments as a faculty group so that every faculty member does not have something due at what the authors refer to as "the seven week nightmare". Another suggestion is to give students a full printout of the class grades after an assignment in order that the student might check to make sure that the professor has recorded the same grade on the grade sheet as appears on the student's paper.
This book is not a "must read", but it is thought-provoking and would be a good choice for a faculty development discussion.
Marion Gillis Olion,
Fayetteville State University