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Education Development Toolkit

Developing and Employing Assessment Criteria 

Introduction

Assessment criteria play a critical role in supporting fair, transparent, and meaningful assessment. They help students understand what is expected of them, enable markers to make consistent judgements, and provide a framework for constructive feedback. Well-designed criteria contribute to assessment and feedback literacy, supporting students to evaluate their own work, engage with feedback, and develop as independent learners. 

Who is this page for? 

This page is intended for anyone involved in the design, delivery, marking, moderation, or review of assessment in higher education. This includes programme and module leaders, teaching staff, assessment designers, external examiners, and colleagues involved in quality assurance and educational development. It may also be useful for staff reviewing assessment practices at programme level or exploring opportunities for student partnership in assessment design. 

Developing effective assessment criteria aligns with the principles underpinning the Professional Standards Framework (PSF 2024). In particular, it supports educators in designing inclusive and authentic learning and assessment experiences, communicating expectations clearly, and enabling learners to engage actively in evaluating and improving their performance. The approaches outlined reflect PSF commitments to promoting equitable learning opportunities, supporting learner success through evidence-informed practice, and fostering collaborative approaches to learning and assessment. 

Developing well-designed assessment criteria also supports Cardiff University’s Our Future, Together strategy by promoting inclusive, transparent and student-centred assessment practices. It can help to deliver an excellent educational experience, foster student partnership and belonging, and support learners to develop the knowledge, skills and self-regulation needed for lifelong learning and positive impact in their communities and professions 

This page provides practical guidance on developing, reviewing, and using assessment criteria. It considers the characteristics of effective criteria, explores approaches to co-creating criteria with students, and highlights how criteria can be used to support consistent marking and moderation practices across programmes and modules. 

Good, clear assessment criteria are appreciated by students and help to ensure that assessments are seen as fair, transparent, and consistent.

Well-designed assessment criteria:

Question(s) to ask:  

  • How well do the criteria align with programme / module learning outcomes?​ 

What this means:  

The School / Programme generic criteria should align with the programme learning outcomes, while task specific criteria should align with the module learning outcomes being assessed in that task. Being consistent in aligning the learning outcomes with the assessment criteria helps promote clarity.  

Question(s) to ask:  

  • Are the criteria observable and measurable?​ 
  • If the criteria are used for similar tasks across the programme, is there consistency in the use of language, promoting students’ ability to self-assess their progress?​ 
  • Will the be criteria unpacked in assignment briefs?​ 

 What this means:  

Criteria should be clear and understandable to students and other stakeholders. Consideration should be given to the level of detail: students need to be able to understand what is expected of them, whilst also being able to manage cognitive load.  The number of criteria attached to a specific task should be limited, to ensure that these are both clear to students and manageable by markers. 

Question(s) to ask:  

  • Is the number of criteria manageable (between 3 and 6 criteria strikes a balance by avoiding overwhelming complexity and ensuring meaningful distinctions between criteria)?​  
  • Are the criteria sufficiently differentiated or do they overlap?​ 
  • How relevant are the criteria for the nature of the task/type and variety of assessments across the programme?​ 

What this means:  

Criteria need to be sufficiently distinct from each other, to ensure that they allow a more holistic approach to marking. Criteria need to be seen by students as an indication of achievement rather than an exact measurement. 

Question(s) to ask:  

  • Do the criteria avoid subjective descriptors (e.g. ‘Excellent’, ‘very good’, ‘fair’)? 
  • Do the criteria avoid references to quality (e.g. logically, effectively)?​ 

 What this means:  

Assessment criteria should avoid, where possible, entirely subjective descriptors, these being open to different interpretation encouraging staff to retrospectively fit prospective marks to criteria. 

What this means:  

Assessment criteria should encourage students to show creativity, spontaneity, and originality. Particularly important at levels 6 and 7, assessment criteria that avoid these can potentially restrict or restrain learners. 

Question(s) to ask:  

  • Are the criteria appropriate for the level of study?​ 

What this means:  

Assessment criteria should be created by developing the descriptor for the basic ‘pass’ first. Use this to indicate what is required at a pass level, but in a positive way.  Try to avoid terms such as ‘inadequate’, ‘limited’, ‘inaccurate’, which are more typically used to describe work that has not met the learning outcomes. 

From a practical perspective, staff may find it useful to initially plan criteria by creating a grid with colleague(s).  Engaging in discussion can help the articulation of difficult ideas.  Having drafted your set of criteria, it is then useful to ask yourself the critical question: do the criteria enable students to identify how well they have done?  If they may struggle to do this, the criteria may need some further work.

How this might work:

  • Students read sample assessments and use them to decide on marking criteria.
  • A committee of students develops marking criteria, which would then be compared with the staff version, and a final version would be discussed.
  • The students' marking criteria are used for peer assessment and self-assessment.

Read here about a project at the University of Cumbria where staff and students co-created assessment criteria, concluding that the staff version was too complex, using academic discourse, and the students' version was too simple, and that the criteria needed to be made accessible to students - considering the question, 'For whom are these [criteria] created?'

Having good clear criteria is an important element of the support that goes into marking.  However, it is equally important to consider how these will be used; this being key to fair and consistent marking and moderation.  This can be achieved by:

  • Ensuring that all markers have a shared understanding of academic standards, by undertaking social moderation exercises and/or by testing the criteria against an initial sample;
  • Ensuring that students know where the criteria can be accessed and reminding them of the role that academic judgement will play in marking.
  • Reviewing the marks you are proposing to award to the first few papers marked to ensure your judgements are aligned with the criteria;
  • When half-way through marking, by returning to a small sample and reviewing these, to ensure marking remains aligned with the criteria and that judgements have not changed through the marking process ;
  • (When marking as a team) reviewing the outcomes reached on any ‘control’ papers, to either enable comparison of different markers and/or to ‘recalibrate’ understanding;
  • Developing feedback comments that relate to specific criteria, to help enable students to better use feedback to improve in specific areas. (Do remember, however, that feedback is not and should not be provided solely as comments that seek to explain and/or justify the mark.)
  • Completing the relevant sections in the moderation proforma and by then providing this, together with access to the scripts being moderated, to the moderator(s);
  • Having the moderator(s) then complete the form and then arranging to meet and discuss the outcomes from this with the first marker (many research studies having shown that meeting and openly and honestly discussing standards is key to developing the shared understanding of standards);
  • Ensuring the completed form is made available to external examiners;
  • By Examining Boards annually reviewing, and, where relevant, revising and updating their criteria to ensure that they both accurately communicate expectations and remain aligned with sector expectations;

[N.B.  Much of the research into moderation has highlighted the need for meetings and discussion between markers to be undertaken in an open, respectful, and transparent way.  Research has further shown that ‘double blind marking’ can lead to defensiveness on the part of second markers; markers avoiding either very high or low marks that could suggest marking out of line with criteria.  However, very low or high marks are also often avoided by second markers who already know the first mark; their judgement having been influenced by the original judgement.]

Inclusivity Tip

Fostering an environment where students feel sufficiently empowered to contribute is critical in promoting inclusive learning.

Sustainability Tip

Engaging students in co-construction can enhance self-regulated learning strategies which provides the foundation for developing sustainable knowledge and life-long learning.