Beyond winners and losers in assessment and feedback

This chapter explores the relationship between findings from two assessment projects funded by the HEA and JISC between 2009 and 2014 at two different universities. The projects were unrelated in design, approach and intention. TESTA focused a wide-angled lens on modular degrees to gain a programme perspective of seven undergraduate programmes at four universities, while Assessment Careers examined the effectiveness of feedback on five postgraduate programmes at the then Institute of Education. The outcomes of both projects gave surprisingly similar interpretations of the problems with assessment and feedback. Modularisation limited students’ capacities to use feedback and see connections across the whole programme of study because learning was compartmentalised; high levels of assessment fed a competitive culture; and disconnected and ineffective feedback impeded student learning. This chapter explores these problems, and demonstrates strategies and approaches which have worked to breach the walls of modular degrees and build a connected and meaningful experience where all students can achieve their ‘personal best’.