Designing Assessment for Successful First Year Learning
One of the key aims of UCD’s Education Strategy (2009-2014) is ‘To foster early and lasting student engagement’, which includes :
‘A review and reform of the structure, outcomes, assessment and remediation strategies for first year, and in particular the first semester, to support the transition from second- to third-level and to adapt to the different needs of different students; The further development of approaches to engage and support students, especially in their first year, including small group learning, peer-mentoring, academic advice and mentoring, specific supports for the development of transferable skills and information literacy, and general welfare supports ‘.
To facilitate this transition to university learning, assessment design in the first year needs to progressively move students from early low-stakes assessment – which build confidence – to more challenging assessments - for achievement. In addition, students need to be engaged and empowered in their learning experience in order to achieve the level of social and academic integration for successful first year learning (Nicol, 2009).
The First Year Assessment Project Advisory Group has developed a series of resources, based on research literature, international good practice and UCD case studies, to provide advice to academic staff in the development and enhancement of first year assessment practices.
- The first resource is for module coordinators and is entitled: Module Design Principles and Practices for First Year Assessment. It is based on the following six module design principles and highlights some comprehensive examples based on the literature.
Table 1: The Six Module Design Principles 1. Allow students, where possible, have opportunity for regular, low stakes assessment with opportunity for feedback on their progress 4. Consider the redesign of the learning sequence of module learning activities in an efficient and effective manner, including the related blended learning opportunities. 2. Develop students’ opportunities for in-class self and/or peer review of their learning against assessment criteria 5. Introduce more active/task-based learning which uses more authentic assessments (i.e. subject/discipline identity) 3. Allow students multiple opportunities for well-structured and supported collaborative learning and its assessment (peer and group-work, project work) 6. Consider the student work-load demands within the module, as well as in parallel modules - The second resource Designing First Year Assessment Strategically focuses on the key issues required in the overview and the strategic design of assessment in the first year of a programme. This resource develops on some of these module design principles, but elaborates on some of the actions that can be taken at the level of a school or programme or stage in designing assessment for first year. It includes at the end, an appendix of the module design principles and advice (so, for convenience, you have both of these resources as one).
- The third resource Five UCD Case Studies of First Year Assessment, provides a detailed description of UCD modules designed for first year engagement. Many of these cases address several of the module design principles above, in one module. Sometimes these types of modules may also be entitled ‘concept’, ‘theme-based’ or ‘enquiry-based’ modules.
- The fourth resource Assessment Workload Equivalences focuses on the issue of student and staff workload associated with assessment. Schools are encouraged to come together to discuss and set their own assessment workload guidelines, often referred to as assessment equivalents. A number of examples of assessment equivalence guidelines are presented in the resource.
These resources are also supplemented by the Focus on First Year audio podcast in the Showcase section of the website.
