Mandatory & threshold assessments
The policy intent to avoid making assessments mandatory by default is to ensure that students do not fail subjects solely due to not having attempted a single task. Mandatory assessments require a sound rationale, such as:
- Accreditation requirements (assessment outcomes satisfy professional standards, with specification of the standard, for example)
- Work Integrated Learning requirements (projects and placement based, for example),
as part of approval through the Curriculum Approval process. As the review cycle unfolds, consider the place of mandatory tasks in programs and subjects. Mandatory tasks should be highlighted in Learning Guides.
Threshold assessments
Threshold Assessments are a sub-type of mandatory assessment. Students must achieve a pre-defined mark to pass the subject, no matter the weighting of the task. Rationales for approval of threshold tasks are the same as for other mandatory tasks.
Supplementary Assessments
In-line with the logic of these two changes, students can now seek a supplementary assessment if they:
- Fail one or more tasks worth < 50% of the total grade, with a mark that falls within 5% of a passing grade (45-49%).
- The exceptions are: end-on bachelor (honours) and others with exceptions approved through the Curriculum Approvals process (for example, clinical placements) or where a fail grade is a result of student misconduct.
- Only one attempt can be made to achieve a pass via supplementary assessment.
The process is as follows:
- Students must apply in writing to a Subject Coordinator (or equivalent) within five working days of official results.
- A supplementary assessment is designed by the Subject Coordinator (or equivalent) to assess whether the student has met the desired learning outcomes for the assessment task(s) they have failed.
- If a student successfully demonstrates they have met the desired learning outcomes in the supplementary assessment, a pass grade (50%) is awarded for the subject
- If the outcome is a lower mark than originally achieved, the original mark(s) will stand.
Overall outcomes of supplementary assessments are reported to SAC. A smooth experience requires:
- Clear communication for students about this process well in advance
- Clear workflows for SCs,
- DAPs are clear in approving, administering and reporting supplementary assessment.
Alternative Assessments
Alternative assessments involve more authentic tasks, focused on performance and embedded into the learning process. COVID-19 restrictions have led to invigilated exams being replaced with alternative online assessments in many cases. There is an expectation that Subject Coordinators create assessment tasks which:
- Can be completed online without invigilation and;
- Support students to develop disciplinary and generic skills through authentic tasks, completed in or referencing authentic settings, with ‘real world’ feedback from authentic sources and developed using a partnership pedagogy approach.
- If students in a single subject may complete either online or offline assessment tasks, these tasks must demonstrate equivalence.
Equivalence in this context is evidenced by equality of student opportunities to successfully demonstrate achievement of learning outcomes in both online and offline version of a task.
What is assessment literacy?
Assessment literacy is important for teachers, students – and increasingly, our partners in co-creation of authentic assessment. Balancing assessment of learning with assessment for learning is understood in curriculum design – but do we focus enough on how we can support students to become self-evaluators of their work, as a key graduate capability?
Assessment scholars focus on different aspects of how assessment design aids that process. For example, in the linked video discussion, Rust focuses on Assessment Literacy and Boud more on sustainable assessment, as a path to evaluative judgement. One is about understanding assessment – the other, the journey from first year to post-graduation – and developing judgements of the quality of outputs. What can we take from these ideas to apply in our own assessment practice?
Assessment Literacy for students
To perform well, students need to be able to work out the purpose of an assessment task and how to do it well, including making accurate judgements in that respect. So, developing capabilities in making sense of information and being motivated to recognise and use feedback effectively to improve judgments about quality and managing emotions are important (Carless & Boud, 2018; Smith, Worsfold, Davies, Fisher & McPhail, 2013).
Practical strategies to try include self and peer review and feedback/feed forward loops within a dialogue, to build feedback literacy as a key assessment literacy. Consider the following activites:
| Self & peer assessment | Review and critique own and peers draft tasks. | Students practice assessing, making judgements on own and others work, using same rubrics as markers, to build understanding of quality output. |
| Dialogic feedback | Draft and redraft before task submission, using rounds of peer and teacher generated feedback. | Students actively using feedback to improve a final grade motivates learning about what quality output is. |
| Feedback/feedforward | Focus feedback on how to improve on the very next task/stage of learning. | ‘Nest’ assessment tasks to scaffold capabilities. Guide students on how to improve and progress, by using feedback from a previous task on the next task. |
Bringing these together in teamwork (and its assessment) is a great example of authentic assessment, being very like how we operate in the world of work.
Assessment Literacy for teachers
Teachers should be confident to support student assessment literacy in how they design and deliver assessment, as well as guide and coach students to do well. Practically, much of that confidence is gained during teaching team discussions about assessment and grading, as well as moderation and calibration of marking as follows:
| Feedback/feedforward | Design curriculum and assessment sequences to encourage student generation and uptake of feedback. | Gradually reduce student reliance on educator feedback, as you move from low stakes/formative to high stakes/summative assessments. |
| Dialogic feedback | Create structured feedback dialogue opportunities, by workshopping assessment tasks in class, providing group feedback on discussion boards and inviting further discussion and feedback on drafts. | Avoid ‘one off’ feedback about what students got wrong, focus on ongoing exchanges about how to get more right next time. |
| Self & peer assessment | Assign students an active role in class and in assessment guides in identifying standards and criteria, creating these and also applying them to their own work and that of peers. | Develop student capability to self-assess and make judgements about the quality of their own work and how to improve it using feedback from many different sources. |
Assessment Literacy for Partners
High quality Work Integrated Learning and professional accreditation activities involve building the assessment literacy of partners. Partnership pedagogy will involve more and more teachers in taking up this challenge. The key focus is to engage workplace, student or community partners as follows in helping to create authentic feedback and assessment tasks:
| Integrate theory & practice | Engage partner’s expertise to link practice with disciplinary theory | What codesign work can help students join the dots between class and real world applications? |
| Authentic feedback ‘in situ’ | Constructive feedback on how students can approach authentic tasks more effectively. | Guide partners to leverage expertise (current practice, professional standards and norms) in providing immediate feedback students can use to improve performance on successive assessment tasks. |
| Set & judge performance standards | Engage workplace or community partners in helping to set learner performance standards, authentically contributing to judgements about the learning achieved by students | Guide partners during codesign on using expertise to calibrate assessment appropriately for either ‘novices’ (commencing students) or soon to be ‘experts’ in their field (later year students). |