Decolonizing assessment of learning in higher education: the journey ahead

ABSTRACT

This Point of Departure ponders the question of decolonizing assessment of learning in higher education. In addressing this question, we, as scholars of color who work in the academy in the US and the UK, have leaned on the work of Shahjahan, Estera, Surla, and Edwards’ (2022) ‘“Decolonizing” Curriculum and Pedagogy: A comparative review across disciplines and global higher education contexts’ in Review of Educational Research (92[1]: 73–113). Their literature review not only uncovered various meanings and methods of actualizing decolonial work, it also foregrounded challenges to decolonize curriculum and pedagogy. This framed our reflections as university teachers, querying what we do with a heart-desire to humanize our practice. We also take up the call to be critical about how we engage in assessment of learning with our students. We hope the readers of this piece will join us on this journey.

Este Punto de Partida reflexiona sobre la cuestión de la descolonización de la evaluación del aprendizaje en la educación superior. Al abordar esta pregunta, nosotros como académicos de la minoridad trabajando en los Estados Unidos y el Reino Unido hemos sido guido por el trabajo de Shahjahan, Estera, Surla y Edwards (2022) “‘Decolonizing’ Curriculum and Pedagogy: A comparative review across disciplines and global higher education contexts” en Review of Educational Research (92[1]: 73–113). Su revisión de la literatura no sólo descubrió varios significados y métodos para actualizar el trabajo decolonial, sino que también puso en primer plano los desafíos para descolonizar el currículo y la pedagogía. Esto enmarcó nuestras reflexiones como maestros universitarios cuestionando qué hacemos con el deseo de humanizar nuestra práctica. También asumimos el llamado a ser críticos sobre cómo participamos en la evaluación del aprendizaje con nuestros estudiantes. Esperamos que los que lean este artículo nos acompañen en este viaje.

KEYWORDS:

• Decolonizing
• assessment
• learning
• postsecondary education
• inclusive education

Acknowledgements

Thank you to the reviewers for encouraging feedback and offering time to give us critical insight to the development of this piece. Also, this would not be possible without our ICARE4Justice global family.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The ICARE4Justice Global Summit brings together ‘a group of transnational critical scholar-practitioners to analyze, assess and design important considerations for establishing a global strategy and framework for advancing equity for racially and ethnically minoritized communities in education research, praxis and policy’ (https://global.uconn.edu/events/icare4justice-participants-2023/). ICARE4Justice stands for the Intersectional and Comparative Advancement of Racial Equity for Social Justice.

2 This was the nature of the questions posed but not verbatim.