Creating a Teaching and Learning Culture to Embed Graduate Attributes into Assessment Practices
المؤلف:
Sundrakanthi Singh & Barry Gibson
المصدر:
Enhancing Teaching and Learning through Assessment
الجزء والصفحة:
P314-C27
2025-07-26
531
Creating a Teaching and Learning Culture to Embed Graduate Attributes into Assessment Practices
The issue of assessment techniques and policies within the university is an increasing problem that is closely associated with staff workloads and student/staff ratios in the classroom. This topic looks at the situation as it has evolved at Edith Cowan University (ECU) and investigates attempts that are being made to resolve some of the difficulties that have arisen during the process of including graduate attributes into the assessment structure of units within degree programs.
At the university the academic program is coordinated at the School level by a Faculty Courses Committee which is responsible for quality control of all units and courses that are to be taught within each Faculty. The overarching body responsible for quality control is the University Teaching and Learning Committee which assesses all new initiatives and passes them onto Academic Board for final approval. The assessment policy at the university has recently been revised and now requires that there must be at least three points of assessment and different methods of assessment must be used in at least two of the three assessment points. While the revised policy has caused little concern, the workload now involved in the assessment of work has become an area for concern. The issue for staff is that today classes are much larger, with class sizes being in the vicinity of 200-300 students, which makes the marking load significantly higher for staff. Added to this is the fact that little credit is given for marking in terms of workloads, with the emphasis being placed on the teaching of units and research output. With staff promotion being heavily dependent on research and teaching performance and the university's national ranking being heavily weighted towards research output it is understandable that large assessment load is a significant concern.
The outcome of this is that time spent on assessment becomes a tradeoff and lecturers are forced to adopt the "least time-consuming" approach and put most effort into the area of teaching and research. This often results in the use of multiple choice and short-answer questions which take less time to mark. Examinations that involve essay type answers therefore tend to be used by those lecturers who are involved in smaller classes. Another factor that influences the assessment methods used relates to the demands placed on the students. Today a significant number of the students face the pressures of balancing university load with their workload outside the university as many are forced to work to support themselves and their families during their university studies. Heavy assessment demands place more pressure on the students and negate the possibility of taking on additional part time work. The preference for shorter assessment is also reflected in the unit and teaching evaluations where students are often very critical of units when lecturers include a heavy assessment program. This in turn can lead lecturers to steer away from situations which will result in unfavorable unit and teaching evaluations. The various constraints and demands that are now being placed on both staff and students have resulted in the use of assessment methods that are less time-consuming for both staff and students.
It is strongly believed that this situation can be addressed and a solution found through the establishment of a framework that maps graduate attributes with particular methods of assessment and takes into account the workload for both staff and students. The initiative described here attempts to address this situation from a learning development focus. The overarching goal is to embed generic skills at the level of the curriculum and to use assessments as a lever to enhance the development and application of generic skills within subject specific professional settings.
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