The latest Show Tell & Talk focused on inclusive assessment and ‘designing for all’ (one of the priorities of the university’s assessment strategy) with presentations from various BILT-funded projects, followed by a Q&A panel discussion with all the presenters and two Student Union reps, Saranya Thambirajah and Timber Hill.
Nicola Rooney (Bristol Veterinary School) started off the workshop by giving an overview of the BILT Associate project, which is working to provide evidence-based guidelines for the university on inclusive assessment. Their ambitious, but highly plausible, project aims include exploring the perceived inclusivity of a range of formative and summative assessments and the links between assessment type and attainment level. It was clear that this interdisciplinary project team is united by their passion for improving the situation for students across the university, a sentiment shared by the Student Union reps, who agreed it was heartwarming that so many projects were considering the diverse needs of students who have felt disadvantaged by assessment for so long.
What is inclusive assessment?
Nicola Rooney explained that inclusive assessment allows students to demonstrate competency in a way that is fair by proactively minimizing disadvantage (Tai et al., 2023). This means that assessments need to be made accessible to all demographics, including students with disabilities such as learning difficulties, those from different cultural or ethnic backgrounds, and those who are juggling the additional pressures of employment and / or caring responsibilities alongside their studies.
Whereas the BILT Associate Project is aiming to investigate the impact of a range of disadvantages on perceived inclusivity of assessment, some of the other projects are focusing on more specific areas, including neurodiversity and anxiety, and the impact on assessment performance. For example, in Psychological Science, Anca Dobrescu is investigating whether there is a difference in performance in regular low-stakes tests between students with Study Support Plans and those without. Considering these different areas of research, it could be beneficial to compare the data from all the projects to explore the issue of intersectionality and gain a greater understanding of how some students are disadvantaged by multiple layers of inequality.
Student involvement in projects
Saranya and Timber also commented that it was hugely encouraging to hear about the high level of student involvement in the various projects happening across the university. In the School of Cellular Molecular Medicine, 5 student partners with lived experience of neurodiversity have been recruited to assess how neuroinclusive the teaching, learning and assessment is on a particular unit. A synthesis of these different student voices on the same unit aims to identify common themes that can feed into School-specific guidelines for more inclusive practice. Alternatively, in Biomedical Sciences, students have been recruited to co-create asynchronous resources to help their peers prepare for oral assessments. These student-generated exemplars will help to demystify the task requirements for both students and new tutors, making this type of assessment more accessible for everyone.
In another inspiring initiative, Student Disability Partners have been appointed in Biological Sciences to audit field-trip documents and develop toolkits for disabled students. The final presentation of the workshop, by the BILT Student Fellow for ‘Designed for All’, Robynne Grant-Jepps, also placed students at the heart of her research, as she used focus groups to find out their views on innovative assessment types and the potential benefits of providing greater diversity in terms of assessment formats. Overall, it was heartening to see that students were considered partners, rather than just participants, in these research projects, which resonates with one of the BILT conference themes for this year: student partnership and co-creation of education.
Designed for all
Towards the end of the panel discussion, attention focused on how relatively small changes to assessments could improve accessibility for all students at the university. Suggestions were made about how to simplify the wording of exam questions to make them more concise by removing redundant language or unnecessary jargon. Some of these principles could also be applied to assessment criteria to make the marking rubrics more accessible to students and tutors. The benefits of Universal Design were also briefly discussed in terms of assessment design.
As the workshop ended, it was clear that the presenters and audience members had many more points they wanted to discuss on inclusive assessment. Hopefully, the enthusiasm of the workshop’s participants will inspire others from across the university community to get involved and keep the conversation going. If you are aware of any initiatives to make assessments in your schools more inclusive, please leave a comment below. We would love to hear from you!
Reference
Tai, J., Mahoney, P., Ajjawi, R., Bearman, M., Dargusch, J., Dracup, M. and Harris, L., 2023. How are examinations inclusive for students with disabilities in higher education? A sociomaterial analysis. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 48(3), pp.390-402.
