Module Assessment

Getting started

This section looks at designing assessments at the module level. While it can be undertaken with the support of your Board of Studies in isolation, it is best undertaken across the programme, in line with the model below.

You will need to consider:

• The type of assessment that will best fit with the Modular Learning Outcomes, and in turn how this matches the programmatic approach to assessment already developed, and thus how it will help support students to meet the programme learning outcomes already defined, and;
• The diet and mix of approaches to assessment – to ensure programmes do not repeatedly assess the same learning outcomes, to prevent assessment bunching, and to allow formative assessments to be held and the feedback comments arising from these to feed into student preparation for summative tasks.

While these are the key things that need to be determined up front, there are several other ‘assessment’ factors that all impact on the quality of the student experience of assessment. These are interrelated and need to be looked at together. Consideration of these factors from a collective perspective, as a programme team, will help in ensuring consistency of information and advice to students, and help to collectively manage workloads within the programme team. These other assessment factors include:

• The nature of the assessment criteria and the ways in which students can be involved in their definition and/or revision;
• The exercises and initiatives that may be contained in your module that have been designed to improve student assessment and feedback literacy and better communicate academic standards to them;
• The ways in which feedback information will be generated, disseminated, and hopefully utilised by your students. For example, do all of these comments need to come from staff?
• What digital tools might you utilise to support formative tasks, ways of developing and maintaining resources (e.g. question banks) for these, and what role students may play in this (e.g. using Peerwise);
• How the summative tasks will be marked. Who will be involved in this and what work need to be undertaken in advance to ensure reduced variation in marking? In turn, what approaches to post marking moderation this might leave you needing, and;
• What processes might you adopt to ensure that the administration of assessment outcomes is simple and reliable.

Is it rocket science?

Addressing types of assessment for the MSc in rocket science

The remaining information on this page is concerned solely with choice of assessment methods. For operationalising assessment see the Learning Design and preparing to Teach section; this being the key information that needs to be recorded and shared with students, and the information required to allow this module to be approved. It uses the BSc/MSc Rocket Science example to understand how a modular assessment strategy is determined in reference to the PLOs, Programmatic assessment and the earlier MLOs we have developed.

Having already determined the Module learning Outcomes, you may find yourself with a level 5 modular structure as per the example below:

(Source: adapted from Kingston University)

As an example, the module ‘RS7’ ‘Communicating Rocket Science’ is at level 5 (i.e. second year), being concerned with communicating rocket science to non-specialist audiences. It builds on a level 4 module that will have introduced students to a number of the key skills utilised in the discipline; a module that is assessed through a) a short poster presentation, and b) a short answer timed assessment that tests student understanding across a range of key skills.

From the work already undertaken, it has been agreed that this module should seek to contribute to:

• Achievement of PLO 10: being able to “communicate effectively, verbally and in writing, within and across interdisciplinary rocket science research teams”
• Graduate Attributes: The further development of chosen University’s graduate attributes – most notably for this PLO these will be concerned with collaboration, effective communication, and reflection and resilience:
• Achievement of MLO: The Module Learning Outcomes cover data retrieval, analysis, and presentation.

In light of the above, the (fictional) Rocket Science Programme Team proposed and agreed that the module will be assessed in the following ways:

• Through an entirely formative task in which the students work in teams to produce a template that will be used for the posters they will produce. (The feedback on which will cover teamwork, and feed forward into a level 6 module that will require students to reflect on team roles and dynamics);
• Through a short summative task that tests students’ skills in data retrieval and use (tutor marked and which builds on the feedback received in the key skills module at level 4);
• Through a formative task in which students co-create the assessment criteria and pro-forma on which feedback comments will be recorded, (both of which will be used in the poster assessment held at the end of the module);
• Through a larger summative task which will require the students to present a poster, which can either be done live or by video, to support students with severe anxiety (to be marked by staff together with the different student teams in the audience, using the criteria and feedback form developed for this purpose).

This is only one example to show how assessment can be designed for a module and across a programme. The example seeks to:

• utilise the feedback comments that students will have received in a previous module;
• develop feedback comments that will feed forward into a module that students are yet to take;
• further develop the assessment and feedback literacy of the students by involving them closely in the assessment and feedback process (thus also reducing the workload placed on staff);
• provide a diet of summative assessment that properly covers the module learning outcomes, and that offers alternative arrangements to help enhance inclusivity, and;
• contribute to both the programme learning outcomes and student acquisition of our graduate attributes.

Mapping Assessments to PLOs

Continuing our MSc in Rocket Science example, below shows examples of different assessment methods that may be used for a selection of illustrative Module Learning Outcomes, along with the graduate attributes that could potentially be met by the MLOs and their corresponding assessment. The list is not a definitive list of all assessment options, neither is it exhaustive, it is presented here for illustrative purposes. If you would like support in programmatic assessment mapping and mapping graduate attributes, please contact the Learning & Teaching Academy and Student Futures.

Deeper dive