Enhancing the development and understanding of assessment literacy in higher education

ABSTRACT

Enhancing students’ assessment literacy is essential in enabling all students to manage their learning successfully. Understanding of the assessment standards required and how to meet them impacts students’ learning outcomes within higher education (HE). However, there are many different conceptions of what assessment literacy comprises, making it difficult to provide guidance on the most effective approaches to enhancing student and academic understanding of this complex and multifaceted concept. With this concern in mind, we investigated the psychometric properties of an assessment tool and its suitability for use within the context of implementing and evaluating pedagogical interventions aimed at enhancing students’ and academics’ assessment literacy skills. The validity of the tool was confirmed using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Furthermore, the identified relationship between assessment literacy and feedback elements of the tool confirms the importance of an integrated approach to assessment. Drawing on extensive piloting of the tool across disciplines we highlight the importance of pedagogical co-construction approaches that promote shared understandings of assessment literacy between students and academics. Suggestions for further enhancement of this measure are proposed with the aim of supporting academics’ and students’ shared understandings and development of assessment literacy.

KEYWORDS:

• Assessment literacy
• factor analysis
• higher education
• student assessment literacy survey
• validity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s). Ethics approval was provided by the UK university where the research was conducted.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by an UK Office for Students Addressing Barriers to Student Success research grant under project code L16; Higher Education Funding Council for England (Office for Students).

Notes on contributors

Xiaotong Zhu

Dr. Xiaotong Zhu is a Research Fellow in the Eleanor Glanville Institute (EGI), the central strategic lead for equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) at the University of Lincoln. Xiaotong is passionate about improving learning experience of students from diverse backgrounds. Her main research interests include attainment gaps, international education, student engagement, assessment and feedback in higher education, for which she carries out quantitative and mixed methods research studies. Xiaotong also has rich experience of analysing quantitative data using SPSS and conducting meta-analysis using CMA.

Carol Evans

Professor Carol Evans has developed higher education assessment policy and practice within and across institutions both in the UK and overseas in numerous capacities such as PVC Learning and Teaching, Griffith University, Professor of Higher Education and Co-Director of the Centre for Higher Education at Southampton University, and as President of the ELSIN research community. Carol is a National Teaching Fellow and HEA Principal Fellow. She attained a Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence and Spotlight Award from Advance HE for her work in promoting team-based research-informed assessment design. She has led and advised on many cross-institution assessment research initiatives (e.g., Office for Students, UK and ERASMUS) to support integrated approaches to assessment utilising the EAT Framework. Her research-informed inclusive frameworks can be found at inclusivehe.org