Reis (2015) offers the following model for thinking about how learning works:
- Learning is social and happens when engaged with other people, directly or indirectly.
- Learning starts with trying simple activities, and progressing to more complex tasks over time and with exposure.
- Learners repeat tasks that come with rewards.
- It is easier to communicate learning through behavioural outcomes.
- Learners learn best when they are attempting to achieve something larger or when learning is made relevant for them.
This model of learning suggests that learning is active, interconnected with other learners and other content, and driven as much as possible by the individual learner.
Assessment is interrelated with many components of learning as articulated by Reis. Considering the principles he lays out, assessment promotes learning when it helps learners make connections between new and existing knowledge, when it engages learners to work together, when it is appropriately laddered, when it is made relevant, and when progress is predictably and meaningfully rewarded.
This means that the inverse is also true. Assessment can hinder learning when it is not clearly connected to expected outcomes, or when those outcomes are not meaningful to learners, and when learners aren’t clear on how they will be evaluated.
Assessment can benefit both student and instructor, and it can be integral to both understanding how a student is learning and what they have learned — but for that reason, it’s important to think through the who and what of every assessment choice. For example, assessing team dynamics might necessitate peer evaluation, and establishing changes to study habits might be best accomplished with reflective practice. There is no “one size fits all” assessment.
Helping students to understand who and what an assessment is for is also critical. Learners should have a clear sense of what is being assessed, how it will be evaluated, and whether the assessment is primarily for their own learning process or primarily to establish course competency. When learners are not provided with this information, it is unlikely that the assessment will promote learning, and indeed it may also increase learner anxiety.
It is critical to think about the relationship between the purpose of the assessment and the method of assessment selected, especially when it comes to summative assignments. If you’re not really interested in the learner’s writing skill, for example, is a formal essay the best method to select? Often, instructors are required to use particular types of assignments for summative assessment — two essays and an exam, for example — which can push those instructors to assess with a method that may not be the most meaningful.
In large classes, we often assess what we can — for example, by using multiple choice exams to evaluate content knowledge — rather than what we might believe matters. In these cases, formative assessments, often ungraded, can be used to augment the learning that may be limited by requisite assignments.
While much of evaluation in post-secondary focuses on outcomes, research suggests that students who receive feedback on their process — in other words, students whose efforts are recognized where positive and corrected where negative — experience deeper learning and more significant improvements in grades over time. This research also suggests that students have a more favourable response to assessments that involve assessing effort, perhaps because it is something they can concretely choose to change and improve in response to feedback, where once the final product is evaluated, students perceive that assignment as finished (Paulson Gjerde et al., 2017).
Obviously, assessing outcomes with summative evaluations is central to most institutions’ (and instructors’) concept of grading. But building in opportunities for students to use formative assessments to gain feedback on process and effort can help students feel in control of their learning experience and allow for better learning — and hopefully better grades! — when those summative evaluations do come around.