4.1.10 Assessing Assessments

Benefits of Assessing Assessments

Both faculty and students benefit when faculty assess students’ self-assessments. These benefits are accentuated via formative assessments of self-assessments throughout a course, prior to summative, end-of-term course evaluation (Angelo & Cross, 1993). Through this process, faculty members become keenly aware of students’ performance strengths and liabilities, enabling faculty to be more effective facilitators of learning. It also provides valuable insights about instructional effectiveness and curriculum. What makes assessment feedback powerful for the student is the fact that someone whom they perceive as a subject-matter expert is focusing on their needs and their desires, helping them to the enhance and improve their learning. Assessing assessments not only helps students gauge their progress toward course goals, but also serves as a catalyst for personal development beyond the course (Park University, 2005).

Methodology for Assessing Assessments

Faculty can assess student assessments at any time in a course (Lewis, 2002). The assessment is most effective if it is outlined at the beginning of the course that ongoing self-assessments are expected, and students are assured that their honesty in the process will be rewarded in the course grading. (Lewis, 2002). Faculty should then work with the students to devise individualized meeting schedules. These meetings should take place during instructor office hours or other designated times throughout the term. The meetings should be ongoing and flexibly scheduled to allow for impromptu meetings at either the student’s or the professor’s initiation (Fuhrman & Grasha, 1983; Lewis, 2002). Best results are obtained by being mindful of the principles outlined in 4.1.1 Overview of Assessment. When assessing assessments, faculty and students work together to accomplish their goals, utilizing the methodology in Table 1.

When providing feedback, verbal or written, to the student regarding the student’s assessment, faculty members are well-advised to consider the SII approach to assessment reporting (4.1.9 SII Method for Assessment Reporting). This simple assessment tool allows an assessor to give feedback on a performer’s strengths, areas for improvement, and discoveries made during the performance or assessment process. The tool can be easily modified for use with other established assessment reporting systems. While both verbal and written assessment feedback to the student are acceptable, written feedback is highly encouraged because it gives students clear documentation so that students are clear on recommendations, commendations, and areas of concern (Fuhrman & Grasha, 1983; Lewis, 2002).

When the faculty member assesses a student’s self-assessment, he or she should keep in mind the student’s course-related, personal, and/or professional goals and objectives, and use this information to improve the quality of the assessment. It is also important for the faculty member to assess the level of the student’s assessment (Level 1, 2, 3, or 4 as described in 4.1.9 SII Method for Assessment Reporting) to help the assessee enrich the next round of assessments.

Criteria for Assessing Assessments

Arguably the most important aspect of assessing student assessment reports is that the assessor be able to connect with the assessee. To establish this connection, the assessor should establish an atmosphere of trust with the assessee, care about the needs of the assessee, establish a rapport which fosters two-way open and honest communication, and serve as a mentor to the assessee so that the assessee believes in the assessor as someone who can help him or her to grow. These attributes are further explored in 4.1.3 Mindset for Assessment.

Although faculty often value self-assessment, some are hesitant to provide their students with feedback on the student’s assessment because of time constraints, the limited connections of the activity to a course’s content, or because they lack self-confidence related to the process. These feelings notwithstanding, faculty should not leave students to their own discretion when initiating the assessment process. Students should be properly introduced and acclimated to the assessment process, helped to establish relevant criteria for the assessment based on achieving optimal performance in the course, and guided how to balance the assessment of strengths, improvements, and insights.

When students are new to the assessment process, they tend to focus primarily on the improvement component of the SII report. By assessing the students’ assessment reports, however, an instructor can readily identify this pattern and provide individuals with useful feedback early enough to preclude self-deprecation. This sort of feedback not only helps the student write the assessment report, but also models for the student the most effective use of the instrument which embodies a holistic perspective rather than a purely critical one. For the faculty member to successfully accomplish this goal, however, he or she must also have clear criteria for assessing assessments.

The criteria outlined in Table 2 identify elements that will help faculty enhance the quality of their assessment of students’ self-assessments, elevate the quality of their assessment feedback, and promote reflective practice (Park University, 2005). Many of the criteria can be shared with students to help them improve their self-assessments.

Issues and Tips for Faculty Assessors

Issue: Conducting Assessments in a Timely Fashion
The sooner an assessment can be returned to the assessee, the greater the opportunity for the assessee to make meaningful connections with the feedback provided, influence current and future performance, and positively impact the next round of assessments (Angelo & Cross, 1993; Lewis, 2002).

Tips

• Start out small. Use assessment only in those courses in which you know you can use it given your schedule, teaching load, class size, etc. (Lewis, 2002). For example, if your class is large, do not expect to assess weekly. You may want to assess quarterly or within some other interval that accommodates your schedule and allows for a quick turnaround of the assessment. It is often tempting to focus on too many things in a single assessment cycle. Too much feedback can overwhelm a student and make it difficult for a high quality assessment to be completed in a timely fashion. See 3.4.8 Practical Implementation of Self-Assessment Journals for a discussion of integrating self-assessment even in a large lecture class using graduate assistants.

• Less is more. Focus the assessment on key criteria relevant to the student’s success. You will be more likely to produce quality assessments that the students will value if you assess with meaningful quality.

Issue: Elevating the Quality of the Assessment
For an instructor’s assessment of a student’s assessment report to be meaningful to the student, the instructor’s assessment must be of a higher quality than the student’s self-assessment. If the faculty member’s assessment does not elevate the level of the student’s assessment, the student assessee will not be motivated to elevate subsequent assessments.

Tips

• It is okay for the assessment to not be fully elevated in the initial round of assessing assessments, as it takes time to develop skills in this area. The assessment criteria provided in Table 1 are designed to help faculty focus on a few key areas during the assessment process.

• Work with another faculty member. Whenever possible, it is important to have a colleague who is interested and/or trained in the SII method to provide you with assessment feedback on your assessment of your students’ assessment reports. Often, an external assessor may pick up on critical components within your assessment which may otherwise serve as encumbrances to the process, such as any use of judgmental language, preaching language, etc.

• As a part of the students’ final course project, have the students write a summative self-growth paper that compares several consecutive assessments that they have written and that have been already been assessed by the instructor. The students’ involvement in this process provides them with the opportunity to engage in a macro-examination of the progress they have made in the course, and to gain an appreciation of the importance of a continuous and constructive assessment process. While this activity takes time, it is integral to the overall success of the assessment, as it fosters the student’s ability to readily realize the personal value of the assessment process, while simultaneously applying the insights gained from the assessment to multiple contexts.

Issue: Resisting the Temptation to Preach
Preachy language often creeps into written assessments. The potential for this temptation is particularly compelling in the “insights” section of an SII-based assessment.

Tip

• Keep the end in mind. Are you writing the assessment report to promote your own goals as a faculty member, from your own experiences as a student, or are you keeping the assessment focused on the student’s goals for the class? Remember that while the assessment process should benefit the assessor, it should primarily serve as a discovery process for the assessee.

Issue: Fostering Trust
Trust is a critical component of the assessment process. As an assessor, you must be willing to take risks with the assessment, while simultaneously treading carefully when approaching the student’s personal boundaries. It may seem as if you are intruding upon the students or invading their personal space by reading their self-assessments and rendering assessments of their assessments. Indeed, reading someone’s self-assessment is a very serious endeavor and should not be taken lightly. For these reasons, trust must be fostered immediately and should be maintained by the assessor via the accordance of respect and confidentiality to the student and to the assessment process itself.

Tips

• Meet with students individually to discuss their expectations of the assessment.

• Jointly establish and convey ground rules for confidentiality and privacy associated with the assessment.

Issue: Getting Buy-In to Assessment Process
Students may balk at having to write self-assessments if they are not used to being reflective; if they lack trust; or if they do not see the relevance of self-assessment in a class which they think should focus only on course content.

Tips

• Tying the assessments of assessments back to a student’s goals validates your interest in what they want to learn.

• Valuing and practicing the tips listed here makes the value of the assessments apparent to students.

Issue: Fearing Inaccuracy in the Overall Conduct of the Assessment
There is no need to fear inaccuracy in the conduct of the assessment, as there is no “right” or “wrong” feedback to be rendered to the assessee. As long as the feedback adheres to the criteria in Table 1, addresses the pre-identified focus areas, and is based upon sound evidence, your assessment will most likely be extremely accurate.

Tips

• It is important to check in with an assessee intermittently to ascertain the assessee’s perceptions regarding your conduct of the assessment. This sort of perception checking is helpful to the assessee, as it gives him or her confidence and trust in the assessment, and further builds upon the rapport the assessee has already built with the assessor. This perception check also helps the assessor, as it serves as a mini self-assessment, which can provide critical information for proactively elevating the assessment. The perception check can be done verbally or in writing.

• Writing “Good Job” in an assessment report with no accompanying explanation to support the assertion can deflate an assessment through its ambiguity. It can be as counter-productive as negative language, such as “This is an incredibly poor effort on your part.” Both types of comments provide no hint at how the assessee can improve performance. While these statements are neither right nor wrong, they do not help the student grow performance (Fuhrman & Grasha, 1983; Lewis, 2002).

Concluding Thoughts

It is well-worth the effort for a faculty member to cultivate his or her skills in assessing assessments. Students take assessment feedback seriously, and, accordingly, so should the instructor. Faculty influence not only students’ academic success, but also their personal and professional lives. Assessments, therefore, must be of high quality and must serve developmental purposes.

Faculty can add the greatest value when assessing an assessment by reporting with the assessee in mind; by using mutually chosen criteria; and by employing language that resonates with the assessee. The assessment process and report must use nonjudgmental, nonevaluative language, and be supported by evidence that is meaningful to the assessee. Care should be taken to balance the number, scope, and relevance of the strengths and areas for improvement. The identified strengths must be non-trivial and be applicable to the next assessment, while the action plan provided as part of the “areas for improvement” must be realistic and attainable. Practicing these principles will strengthen faculty members’ own self-assessment skills and help elevate their professional capabilities.

References