‘It mixed normal life with academic life. I felt safe and more engaged’. How an assessment accidentally built community, confidence and belonging

This presentation considers the unanticipated benefits of a two-stage, authentic assessment design.

We will present both academic and student perspectives.

The idea for this session has been developed jointly by the module lead and two students. The presentation will be written and presented jointly by the module lead and two students.

Assessment design is fundamental to learning. At its best, assessment is for learning, developing students’ interests, motivations and engagement. More recently, authentic assessment has been promoted as a tool to enhance graduates’ employability, by providing students with a task that they would expect to find in the workplace. By replicating a task and performance standard in an assessment provides a form of work-related experience, valued by employers.

Good assessment design also promotes feedback literacy, encouraging students to use, understand and value feedback, to enhance their learning and assessment attainment. Assessments that enhance feedback dialogue can support the development of feedback literacy.

As such, I developed a two-step assessment design for my Level 5 Politics students. At the outset of the module, students identified a transport issue that was important to them, or their communities. They were tasked with investigating this issue and all learning on the module was designed to support this. Half way through the module, the first assessment was to present a verbal briefing on their case study, to a decision maker of their choosing. The second assessment, at the end of the module, was a written options and decision briefing paper, on the same case study, to the same decision maker.

Formal evaluation, considering attainment and module evaluations, suggests that the assessment achieved its aims, increasing the use and understanding of feedback, increasing feedback dialogue and enabling students to use their learning in a practical way. The impact on attainment was unclear.

However, the feedback revealed other, unanticipated benefits. Attendance and engagement were high. Community and a sense of belonging developed. Students gained confidence, felt included, comfortable and safe.

In this presentation, we will discuss the assessment, before considering the intended and unintended consequences. Much of the presentation will be delivered by our student presenters, who will discuss the benefits of the assessment, before suggesting improvements for next year and discussing ways in which these benefits could be realised by other modules.