HSS Assessment Toolkit

Use of a variety of forms of assessment has significant benefits:

1. Inclusivity and equality of opportunity

For some students, the tasks involved in conventional independent written work, or other dominant modes of assessment, are disproportionately challenging (Race 1999). The OBU Quality Handbook commits the University to ensuring that assessments are "designed to enable students to demonstrate that they have attained the relevant knowledge and skills, in a way that is appropriate to the learning outcomes being assessed and the disciplinary context" (OBU Quality Handbook, 6.2). The University is also committed to "developing assessment and feedback practices that are fair, inclusive and accessible" and requires that "when designing assessments [...] staff are attentive to the need to provide our diverse student body with opportunities to demonstrate their learning in ways that avoid systematic disadvantage to groups or individuals" (OBU Assessment and Feedback Policy for Taught Programmes, 2021).

In May 2022, the Oxford Brookes University Student Union passed a motion which called for the University to work harder to "make assessment more accessible and inclusive for all kinds of students" and to ensure assessment design is "considerate of learning difficulties".

No single form of assessment is equally inclusive for all students. Employing a diverse range of assessments across a programme reduces unequal disadvantage for students with particular learning needs, as does offering alternative assessment options for individual assessment points, and making ISP-related assessment accommodations with respect to mode of delivery.

2. Skills development

Use of a variety of forms of assessment enables students to engage with and rise to new challenges, developing adaptability, self-efficacy and confidence. It also supports students in developing a broader range of skills and experience (HEA 2016). This has demonstrable value for students both during and after their degree studies. Embedding and explicitly drawing out the development of a range of skills and competencies, and skills literacy, within the curricula, as well as and through the development of subject knowledge, is critical to empowering students to grow and succeed in the ways that they want to. This also reduces systemic disadvantage: the gains of in-curricula are particularly significant for students in some groups traditionally underrepresented in higher education for whom extra-curricula learning and development opportunities and experiences may be less accessible, and/or for whom the kinds of social and cultural capital which facilitate certain forms of graduate agency and success are less available (Dalrymple, Macrae, Pal and Shipman 2021).

3. Engagement and appeal

Use of a variety of forms of assessment appeals to a wider range of interests (Bevitt 2015). This can increase student engagement with their learning (McDowell and Sambell 1999) and can also appeal to prospective students as a marker of innovation, variety and creativity in course design.

4. Disciplinary value

While some forms of assessment are more intrinsically bound to the subject knowledge and disciplinary competencies in focus than others, many forms of assessment can be adapted and transposed across disciplinary contexts in ways which offer valuable new affordances for authentically assessing discipline-specific knowledge and competencies.

Graduate employability is enhanced by ensuring that students are able to “make a connection” between their discipline and their development of skills, and able to reflect on and communicate their skills development to potential employers (Artess et al 2016, p.7; cf. Higher Education Academy 2013).

Explicit critical reflection upon skills development is not consistently a routine part of teaching and learning within modules. Assessments are a point of peak engagement for most students, and so provide a good opportunity for this reflection.

Attention to the skills involved in assessments helps students to recognise the relationships between different assessment tasks, increasing understanding and investment, and enables students to trace the progression of their skills development through the course of their degree.

Use the drop down menu under the 'Assessment Formats' tab. On each Assessment Format page, you’ll find

- a list of different forms of assessment which are used within that Assessment Format category

- a list of skills typically involved in each form of assessment

- a list of modules which use each form of assessment, with links to sample assignment briefs and other supporting materials, drawn from across the faculty.

Note, the Assessment Format categories are those used in Banner, and many forms of assessment fit within multiple Assessment Format categories.

Use the drop down menu under the 'Skill Types' tab. On each Skill Type page, you’ll find

- details about different aspects of that skill

- a list of general Assessment Formats which typically involve that skill

- a list of specific forms of assessment which typically involve that skill

- details about particular aspects of that skill which may be involved in each specific form of assessment

- a list of modules which use that form of assessment, with links to sample assignment briefs and other supporting materials, drawn from across the faculty.

You can also use the search function (top right of menu bar) to search within these pages for keywords such as 'essay', 'communication', etc.

We would like to feature further examples of assessment types and associated high quality sample materials used in HSS. Please contact Shirley Shipman (at sshipman@brookes.ac.uk) or Andrea Macrae (at andrea.macrae@brookes.ac.uk) if you would like to share your assessment materials as part of this toolkit.

Please contact Andrea Macrae (at andrea.macrae@brookes.ac.uk) or Shirley Shipman (at sshipman@brookes.ac.uk) with any queries or feedback.

For evaluation purposes, if you use this toolkit in the context of your own programme please do email us to let us know. We would be very grateful for additional information such as any constructive adjustments made in adapting assessments to new disciplinary contexts, etc.