Outcomes

Future Directions

  • Greater use in formative assessment
  • Greater use in other educational contexts outside higher education (e.g. secondary, professional)
  • Include enhancements from research (e.g. normalisation adjustment)
  • Use by students for summative assessment of group and individual task (rather than simply process)
  • Use in product evaluation
  • Use in real work and simulated business contexts to enhance teamwork
 

Society

  • Promoting collaboration is unlikely without completing the feedback loop
  • SPARK is one tool for supporting self and peer assessment, especially with large classes, that enables the feedback loop to be closed
  • Generic kit/template easily adapted to any group assessment context
  • Guidelines for good practice developed including requirements for success
   

Department

  • Failure possible if poorly communicated or supported
  • Mainstream academics reluctant unless robust
  • Top level support aids development and completion
   

Staff

  • Improves approaches to teaching & learning
  • Increased dialogue about and engagement with pedagogical issues
  • Positive effect on curriculum development
    • Requiring academics to allocate assessment criteria to different attribute categories had strong potential to influence curriculum development.
      • Academics report being challenged to reflect on the design of their assessment tasks to produce assessments that actually develop and demonstrate desired attributes.
      • Challenged to design assessment tasks that have components that contributed to the attribute categories relevant for their subject.
      • Design assessment tasks to more thoroughly test a student’s application or ability to combine and apply requisite knowledge rather than just testing this knowledge itself.
  • Allows innovative assessment tasks to be implemented even in large classes without undue academic burden
  • Careful choice of assessment criteria allows virtually any discipline and / or generic attributes to be assessed and their development promoted.
  • Improved attitudes
    • Satisfaction that students assessment promotes teamwork development
    • Greater comfort in confidentiality of process
    • Greater comfort in accuracy of adjustments since no double entry of data
  • Attitudinal challenges
    • Technical hiccups concern students especially if assessment related
    • Different disciplinary contexts have different tacit assumptions affecting implementation
  • Improved productivity
    • Time saved in data collection, collation and calculation
    • Reduced errors in application of self & peer assessment
    • Optimal if staff & students already online, if focus on developing collaboration not just reducing free-riders and if well-communicated, supportive technical environment
    • Ability to re-use and apply in any context
  • Improved approaches to teaching& learning
    • Increased dialogue about pedagogical issues
    • Increased integration with academic developers
   

Students

  • Promotes the development of generic attributes including reflection, critical evaluation, ability to give feedback, interpersonal and teamwork skills
  • Allows fairer assessment of group work activities
  • Promotes collaboration , peer learning and develops judgement
  • Aligning assessment categories to competencies required for Professional Accreditation adds value
  • Attribute tracking increases student engagement
  • Students can use results collected in their e-portfolios to demonstrate their competence to prospective employers, especially in regard to generic attributes of which development is rarely if ever assessed.
  • Multiple layers (Kirkpatrick 1994) includes reactions, learning, behaviour/skills, organisation
    • Improved attitudes and satisfaction
      • sense of fairness restored
      • complaints of 'unfair' reduced
      • greater ownership in assessment
      • deeper engagement
      • no effect necessary if already a team player
    • Improved learning
      • peer learning opportunities enhanced
      • awareness of key components of groupwork
      • reflective learning promoted
    • Improved capabilities and improvements needed
      • team collaboration
      • interpersonal skills
      • reflection attributes
  • Extract from Freeman & McKenzie (2002)