Improving Students' Learning by Developing their Understanding of Assessment Criteria and Processes

By C. Rust, M. Price, Berry M. O’Donovan. 2003

645 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This paper reports the findings of a two-year research project focused on developing students' understanding of assessment criteria and the assessment process through a structured intervention involving both tacit and explicit knowledge transfer methods. The nature of the intervention is explained in detail, and the outcomes are analysed and discussed. The conclusions drawn from the evidence are that student learning can be improved significantly through such an intervention, and that this improvement may last over time and be transferable, at least within similar contexts. This work is a development within a longer and ongoing research project into criterion-referenced assessment tools and processes which has been undertaken in the pursuit of a conceptually sound and functional assessment framework that would promote and encourage common standards of assessment; that project is also summarised.

Subfields: Developmental and Educational Psychology, Education

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/8155386bf49a3c67402a87070bb013662bdc1e97

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In Developmental and Educational Psychology

In Education

Citations in the corpus

Beyond feedback: developing student capability in complex appraisal (2010, background): “Among the ways for dealing with the communication problem have been proposals to focus explicitly on raising students’ understanding of the assessment criteria in order to initiate the productive dialogues which need to occur (Rust, Price, and O’Donovan 2003 ).”
Feedback Dialogues That Stimulate Students' Reflective Thinking (2013, background): “First, because feedback is information to close the gap between student's performance and certain criteria, it should be based on those criteria and explicate the differences between both (Ramaprasad, 1983 ; Rust, Price, & O'Donovan, 2003 ; Sadler, 1989 , 2010 ).”
Formative assessment and self‐regulated learning: a model and seven principles of good feedback practice (2006, background): “However, many studies have shown that it is difficult to make assessment criteria and standards explicit through written documentation or through verbal descriptions in class (Rust et al., 2003).”
Learning‐oriented assessment: conceptual bases and practical implications (2003, background): “This was done, although it misses an opportunity for students to be actively involved in the generation of criteria (cf. Rust et al ., 2003).”
Making productive use of exemplars: Peer discussion and teacher guidance for positive transfer of strategies (2016, background): “Different modes include additional optional workshops (Rust et al. 2003), part of regular class (Hendry et al. 2012) and annotated online (Handley and Williams 2011) or offline resources (Bell et al. 2012).”
Feedback: focusing attention on engagement (2011, background): “…with good practice, seeks to be developmental and encourage the student to be questioning and enter into dialogue (Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick 2006; Rust, Price, and O’Donovan 2003; Sadler 1989), could, unwittingly, employ language and tone that undermines that purpose, such as using the…”
A scholarly approach to solving the feedback dilemma in practice (2016, background): “There is a growing body of research that has shown that through engaging in assessment exercises (Rust, Price, and O’Donovan 2003) and the assessment process (O’Donovan, Price, and Rust 2008), by assessing the work of peers (e.g. Carless et al. 2011; Forbes and Spence 1991; Hughes 1995; Rust 2001),…”
Moving feedback forward: theory to practice (2013, methodology): “Rust, Price, and O’Donovan (2003) note, in relation to assessment criteria, that socialisation processes are necessary to help develop a shared understanding between students and staff, although they note that traditional methods of achieving this are ‘resource heavy’.”
Peer review in higher education: Student perceptions before and after participation (2014, background): “Several scholars (e.g. Orsmond et al., 2000; Rust et al., 2003) thus call for students to be provided with opportunities to participate more actively in the assessment process, and for formative peer assessment to be used ‘to empower students as self-regulated learners’ (Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick, 2”
From monologue to dialogue: improving written feedback processes in mass higher education (2010, background): “…is a significant body of research showing that students frequently do not share their teacher’s understanding of the assessment requirements, and that this weak contextual understanding undermines learning and feedback (Hounsell 1997; MacLellan 2001; Norton 1990; Rust, Price, and O’Donovan 2003).”
Peer and self‐assessment in the first year of university (2011, methodology): “Exceptions to this tendency include Fazey (1993), van Hattum-Janssen and Lourenço (2006), van Hattum-Janssen, Pacheco, and Vasconcelos (2004), O’Donovan, Price, and Rust (2004), and Rust, Price, and O’Donovan (2003).”