The Practice
A growing body of evidence supports student partnership and co-creation of assessments in higher education to promote deep learning (Zarandi, et al., 2022), however there is a paucity of studies investigating enablers and barriers to assessment co-creation within the postgraduate space.
We explored the attitudes and experiences of students on the MSc Reproduction and Development programme in the negotiation and co-creation of a marking criteria. Students were asked to use their marking criteria to assess their peers and themselves, undertaking group case study presentations. An “assessment as learning” approach was adopted as the assessment process was an integral part of the learning.
Co-creation of the marking scheme occurred in teaching block 2. Students were familiarised with the UoB marking rubric in teaching block 1. In block 2 a pre-recorded briefing session was supplied for the activity followed by a facilitator-led workshop supporting students to negotiate and agree on a final marking scheme. Students were also given pre-recorded presentations from previous years, (filmed and uploaded to Blackboard) to practice performing their assessments using the criteria. All students were required to peer assess and provide feedback on case-presentation performance using the co-created mark scheme. Peer marks were submitted a few weeks after these presentations.
Learner reflections on their experience in co-creating assessment criteria were collected from three semi-structured focus groups and 1 focus group with course educators, facilitated by an independent student research assistant and a facilitator. Responses were transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis. Our main research question was: can engagement with assessment criteria be useful for developing and enhancing transferable skills and graduate attributes? To our knowledge, this is the first study to enable MSc student partners to co-create a marking scheme using the new UoB marking criteria.
Findings
Student data were categorised into four main themes, following reflexive thematic analysis: ‘Transferable and employable skills’; ‘Unique learning experience’; ‘Barriers/Enablers to skill development’; and ‘Perceived value’. The ‘assessment as learning’ exercise was coded into three main tasks as discussed by students: choosing a marking criteria; peer and self-assessment; and applying the marking criteria. Themes and subthemes by activity can be seen in table 1.
Table 1: Themes and sub-themes by Activity
Please scroll to the right to view the full table
| Transferable and employable skills | Unique Learning Experience | Barriers/Enablers to skill development | Perceived Value | |
| Creating a marking criteria | Negotiating with a multidisciplinary team. Understanding assessment criteria. | Understanding the assessment criteria Unique for International Learners (especially small group work) | More secure in a group environment English as a second language Overcomplicated and repetitive set of initial criteria (UoB rubric) | Should be prioritised. Collaboration and Negotiation in Workshop Exercise. Small group sizes in workshop to enable discussion. Understanding assessment criteria prior to undertaking task. Improvement in future work due to understanding of assessment criteria. Self reflection and peer refection were uncomfortable and unfamiliar but were recognised as desired professional attributes. One student had already been able to list her new skills in an application for a future training opportunity. I would give it more priority actually. … I would think that taking up two sessions is valuable’ (Student 002) ‘I definitely think that …, it should be done every year. I think it was definitely very insightful, very engaging… and again challenging … and I think everybody should at least do it once to see if that’s that’s something they would like to do later and if they want to take part in’ (Student 005) ‘We’ve just all done our STP applications. … and it is something that I wrote about in my application actually and it was really useful … when you’re writing your application, you have to go through and ticks and it definitely ticked off a couple of boxes (Student 002). |
| Peer and self-assessment | Self-reflection. Peer evaluation. Experience | Confidence in ability/attributes/experience to assess peers. Uncomfortable, unfamiliar, but valuable. Structured Peer marking | Confidence in ability/attributes/experience. | |
| Applying the marking criteria | Self-reflection. Peer evaluation Understanding assessment criteria Critical Skills | Confidence with experience. Objectivity & Bias English as a second language. Complexity and Burden Sharing Facilitator Experience | ||
| Entire Exercise | ‘I know that a lot of employers now they’re looking for those skills…(Student 002) | Unique for International Learners ‘For me in the [redacted country], we never got to do anything like that’ (Student 005) | Number of tasks in time allotted |
The Impact
Facilitators saw peer and self-assessment as an integral part of working in health professions.
Students saw the ‘assessment as learning’ exercise as a positive, useful, unique and meaningful experience, and an opportunity to develop and enhance transferable skills and graduate attributes enabling them to complete applications for extremely competitive course-related scientist training programmes. Engaging with the marking scheme enabled them to understand and meet assignment criteria.
Findings were presented at the BILT annual conference ‘Education for a changing world’ and generated much interest.
An abstract has been submitted for the HALSEN Conference ‘Education through collaboration and innovation’.
Next Steps
- Student involvement in the early design of marking schemes can help support learning and understanding.
- Leads to co-creation of knowledge around the process and language of assessment, helping to demystifying assessments
- Our findings will be of interest to other practitioners who wish to develop opportunities for student agency, engagement and partnership in the creation of new or existing assessments within our institution and beyond
- The findings will be submitted as a paper to a peer reviewed journal
Contact
Gemma.Ford@bristol.ac.uk
References
Zarandi, N., Soares, A. and Alves, H. (2022) ‘Strategies, benefits and barriers– a systematic literature review of student co-creation in higher education’, Journal of Marketing for Higher Education, 34(2), pp. 895–919. doi: 10.1080/08841241.2022.2134956.
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