Assessment in Higher Education: Professional Development for Teachers

As research shows, assessment plays an important role in steering the learning process. There is, however, not one best method of assessment. So, how can you select the right methods of assessments for your course? Making an assessment plan can help you select the right testing methods and decide on the relative weight of each assessment for the final result of a course. An assessment plan also helps to ensure that the assessment addresses the intended learning outcomes. In addition, it provides a good overview of the test arrangement for a course that will be published in the course manual. This makes an assessment plan a helpful tool for examiners and an important instrument for quality assurance. With an assessment matrix, you ensure that all the selected learning objectives are covered in your assessment. This also helps to ensure that your assessment will be both valid and reliable. Whereas making an assessment matrix may feel like additional work, using it will actually save you time as you will develop questions and assignments that exactly match your learning objectives and you avoid the risk of formulating too many questions that are aimed at the same content or skill.

In module 1 you have learned about assessment FOR learning and the role assessments play in the learning process of students. In this module we will take this to the next step. You will learn why feedback is so important and how to provide feedback using rubrics. Did you know there are different types of rubrics? Depending on the function of the rubric each type has both its advantages and disadvantages. This module will help you deciding what type of rubric suits your needs. In the stage of grading, methods of setting a cut-off score are important. You will learn about different methods of setting a cut-off score and the advantages and disadvantages of these methods.

The results of student assessments often have far-reaching consequences for their educational or even professional careers. When we allow our assessments to have such impacts on people’s careers, it is of the utmost importance that we are very sure that our measurement is reliable and accurate and a valid representation of students’ actual abilities…. Unfortunately, that is not always the case. The goal for this module is to help you to apply quality criteria for the construction of assessments and assessment items. Because, if we improve the quality of our assessments, we improve the quality of our education, and we will have a huge impact on the future education and careers of our students.