Discussion Outcome-based assessment
المؤلف:
Mary-Jane Taylor & Coralie McCormack
المصدر:
Enhancing Teaching and Learning through Assessment
الجزء والصفحة:
P66-C7
2025-06-09
553
Discussion
Outcome-based assessment
Biggs (2003) states that students will learn what they believe they will be examined on; and the assessment determines what and how students learn more than the curriculum itself. This is called the "backwash effect". If a system is poorly aligned, and the grading criteria is not aligned to the subject objectives; or if the criteria are not given to students, they will not be clear about what they are required to learn, what criteria their performance will be measured against, and what is meant by good work. As a result, students will engage themselves in surface learning, and cause a "negative" backwash.
In other words, the assessment criteria must be aligned to subject objectives, and this needs to be communicated to students at the beginning of the learning process. Teaching staff are then able to evaluate the extent to which students' performance matches or does not match the criteria (which is aligned with the subject's objectives), and inform them accordingly. Moreover, teachers can suggest ways in which students can improve, and give them the opportunity to do so.
The alignment between subject objectives, teaching and learning activities, and assessment criteria should actually commence at the curriculum level and should be embedded in each subject taught. One of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University's strategic objectives is to produce preferred graduates, and it has recently carried out a curriculum revision of all its academic programs, particularly full-time programs, for the 2005 to 2008 triennium. This revision has examined the subjects of academic programs so that their objectives, teaching and learning activities, and assessment are constructively aligned with an outcome- based orientation. This refreshing move towards outcome-based education in academic programs is a current international trend in higher education and is in fact now required by some professional bodies for accreditation.
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