For over 30 years, the notion of authentic assessment in higher education has been adopted in academic practice, but it has managed to escape substantial critique. Although there have been multiple definitions and operationalisations of authentic assessment, current practice tends to foreground mimicking of work tasks. Authenticity cannot be…

It is widely acknowledged in research that common criteria and aligned standards do not result in consistent assessment of such a complex performance as the final undergraduate thesis. Assessment is determined by examiners' understanding of rubrics and their views on thesis quality. There is still a gap in the research literature about how…

Groupwork is a crucial aspect of work contexts and a key twenty first century skill. Assessment of groupwork provides a persistent challenge for educators in university contexts with students reporting experiences of unfairness from their peers during groupwork. This study developed a novel Peer Assessment Fairness Instrument to explore factors…

While the benefits of peer review on feedback literacy are widely recognised, peer marking tends to be associated with summative assessment, and often dismissed as a legacy from outdated approaches where assessment was used for measuring learning rather than as a means of achieving it. This paper repositions peer marking as a means of developing…

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…

Although it is increasingly recognised that higher education institutions have to play a critical role in the progression towards a sustainable development, the question of what fields and issues universities should attend to in their attempt to become more sustainable remains subject to debate. In recent years, sustainability assessment tools…

A multi-disciplinary academic unit at a Canadian university completed an evaluation of course syllabi used in its undergraduate programmes over the previous five years. This paper examines the reasons for the evaluation, the processes employed to collect and analyse the data, and how the results will be incorporated into the next steps of the…

A review of articles published in "Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education," over the last eight years (2006-2013) on assessment in higher education, since the introduction of the Bologna process, is the subject of the paper. The first part discusses the key issue of assessment in higher education and the method used for selecting…

Owing to the increasing diversity of assessments in higher education, feedback should be provided to students in a format that can assist future and alternative work. This study aimed to assess the effectiveness of the Essay Feedback Checklist on future alternative assessments. Participants were assigned to one of two groups, one of which…

This paper explores ways in which examiners, supervisors and others interpret the concept of "originality" when evaluating candidates' achievements in the final Ph.D. examination. It is based on institutional responses to a question in a 2006 discussion paper on doctoral assessment about how universities define originality for the…

The development of assessments that are fit to assess professional competence in higher vocational education requires a reconsideration of assessment methods, quality criteria and (self)evaluation. This article examines the self-evaluations of nine courses of a large higher vocational education institute. Per course, 4-11 teachers and 3-10…

Giving students detailed feedback about the strengths and weaknesses of their work, with suggestions for improvement, is becoming common practice in higher education. However, for many students, feedback seems to have little or no impact, despite the considerable time and effort put into its production. With a view to increasing its effectiveness,…

Professional preparatory health programmes generally involve clinical placements with a focus on integration of theory into real life practice. Reflective writing is often included in the assessment requirements for clinical placement courses. However enabling students to engage in deeper levels of reflective writing in action, on action and for…

The plentiful and steadily increasing literature on teaching and learning in higher education has produced a number of helpful frameworks and guidelines that can be applied to the development and communication of assessment practice. The continued prevalence of much imprecise, unclear and otherwise confusing terminology around the discussion of…

When assessment tasks are set for students in universities and colleges, a common practice is to advise them of the criteria that will be used for grading their responses. Various schemes for using multiple criteria have been widely advocated in the literature. Each scheme is designed to offer clear benefits for students. Breaking down holistic…