Assessors' perspectives on their evaluative practices remain relatively under-researched. Given evidence that higher education assessment and feedback continue to be problematic, this paper proposes a specific methodological innovation with potential to contribute both to research and practice in this area. It explores the potential of a…

Increasing pressure is being placed on governments and legislators in different countries to take action against assignment outsourcing in higher education. Global discussions focus on prohibiting commercial outsourcing providers, such as contract cheating services. Despite evidence to suggest that outsourcing behaviours by students are…

The extent and reach of commercial cheating opportunities is ever present; thousands of websites promote differing business models offering assignments in multiple languages and currencies. In addition to commercial companies, students are known to outsource their assignments from friends and family. Assignment outsourcing and contract cheating…

The success of peer feedback approaches to instruction depends upon students contributing in-depth feedback to their peers. Prior researchers have examined the role of general attitudes towards peer feedback, but how experiences, especially the performance information during peer feedback, influence the subsequent amount of feedback that students…

Research on flexible assessment suggests that providing students with choice in assignments can increase motivation and deepen investment in learning. Although instructors are often advised to adopt flexible assessment, they are also warned about potential detriments such as perceived lack of rigour among colleagues, the stress that…

Contract cheating providers exist as businesses with a single shared intention, to profit on a student's inability to fulfil academic requirements for themselves. For contract cheating providers to make money, the correct market conditions are required. First, providers need to be able to offer the expertise that students request. Second, students…

Given the crucial role that teacher education programmes play in developing teacher-students' assessment literacy, this study investigates all the course syllabi (n = 278) in primary and secondary-school teacher education programmes offered by three universities in Norway. This study aimed at identifying: (1) the assessment patterns, (2) the…

This study explores the experiences of five distance learners at a UK university who needed support to resubmit their final assignment following a fail result. Having received written feedback on the submission, we asked how this could be best delivered to inform and motivate a successful resubmission. Written feedback alone was found to be…

Contract cheating occurs when students outsource assessed work. In this study, we asked experienced markers from four disciplines to detect contract cheating in a set of 20 discipline-specific assignments. We then conducted a training workshop to improve their detection accuracy, and afterwards asked them to detect contract cheating in 20 new…

Contract cheating is the purchasing of custom-made university assignments with the intention of submitting them. Websites providing contract cheating services often claim this form of cheating is undetectable, and no published research has examined this claim. This paper documents a pilot study where markers were paid to mark a mixture of real…

Many studies have found a relationship between students' self-reported procrastination and their grades. Few studies have used learning analytic data as a behavioural measure of procrastination in order to predict performance, and there is no systematic research on how this relationship may differ across assessments or disciplines. In this study…

The analysis of exemplars of different quality is a potentially powerful tool in enabling students to understand assessment expectations and appreciate academic standards. Through a systematic review methodology, this paper synthesises exemplar-based research designs, exemplar implementation and the educational effects of exemplars. The review of…

Group work, where students work on projects to overcome challenges together, has numerous advantages, including learning of important transferable skills, better learning experience and increased motivation. However, in many academic systems the advantages of group projects clash with the need to assign individualised marks to students. A number…

Authentic assessment is revered to support student learning, but it is typically described within the context of work-integrated learning and professional schools, leaving one to question whether a classroom-based curriculum can offer authentic assessments. This study documented the prevalence of authentic assessments throughout a complete health…

Contract cheating sites advertise that they provide high quality, undetectable, bespoke work delivered in a timely manner to students purchasing their assignments. This paper tests contract cheating sites' promises about the products they sell. We built on previous reported research examining contract cheating sites' persuasive features which were…