Marking and Assessing
Andy Wilson
Loughborough University
Purpose
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To help you to…
 mark
 assess
 provide feedback
…in line with the expectations of a British
university.
Why do we assess?
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Classify or grade students
Enable student progression
Guide improvement
Indicate what the module is about
Inform students’ choice of options
Provide feedback on our teaching
Motivate students
Provide statistics for the programme/course
Provide evidence for quality purposes
Etc.
Why do we assess? 2
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Summative ~ summary measure of performance
Formative ~ feedback to help students improve
Informative ~ guidance on what is expected.
What do we assess?
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How well the students have met the requirements
of the module.
A MORAL model…
Methods
Teaching techniques
Outcomes
ILOs
Resources
Facilities, equipment, etc
Assessment Techniques of assessment
Learners
Students’ characteristics
 An iterative design process.
 All these must be consistent.
 If you don’t assess it then students won’t
see it as important.
Assessment assumptions
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Students can fail
The good students
should have the
chance to show that
they are good
There aren’t any trick
questions
You mark what you
see, not what you
hope to see
One person doesn’t
decide their mark
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You should mark using
the full range
Students know how
they are going to be
assessed
The assessment
criteria are clear to all
Abilities – and marks –
are distributed
reasonably normally
How can we make
these happen?
“assessment criteria are clear”
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Imagine these questions from a student…
 “What will get me a mark of 90%?”
 “What will get me a mark of 70%?”
 “What will get me a mark of 50%?”
 “What will get me a mark of 30%?”
How would you answer them?
“reasonably normally”
Distributions compared
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The following slides show BUE and Loughborough
mark distributions
The right-hand columns show the Programme
marks.
Loughborough engineering
Comment
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The BUE programme distributions are sometimes
very different from those at Loughborough…
Comment 2
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These are, of course, the aggregate of module
marks
In a British university the module marks would
show a somewhat similar distribution
In the BUE the module marks are markedly
different
These very different module marks can cancel
each other out to produce less extreme
programme distributions.
Module marking
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“Firstly, a large number of modules, particularly
at Year 1 level, had very low averages (with some
below credit level) and large numbers of students
failing to achieve credit.”
“Secondly, a large number of modules,
particularly at Year 3 level, had very high
averages (above 70 or even 80%) and
disproportionate numbers of students gaining
grade A.”
“In some cases the same group of students was
achieving averages below 40% or above 70% in
different modules.”
Lessons from this
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BUE marking tends to be:
 Inconsistent across modules
 Within too narrow a range
 Not sufficiently challenging
 Not sufficiently discriminating
 Not sufficiently scrutinised
Critical to this is the nature of the questions
asked
Consider this hierarchy…
After Bloom
Create
Evaluate
Analyse
Apply
Understand
Remember
Blooming obvious
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The good students will
be able to operate at
these higher levels
The weaker students
will not
So we should ask
some of our questions
at this level…
…with more of these
higher level questions
in the later years.
Learning verbs (Hall, 1976)
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Define
Describe
Identify
List
Match
Name
Order
Recognize
Recall
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Appraise
Argue
Assess
Compare
Contrast
Defend
Discriminate
Evaluate
Explain
Justify
Predict
Summarize
Loughborough exam papers
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See the examples of module specs and exam
papers.
Feedback
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Performance without feedback misses
opportunities and reduces motivation
It makes it a game of Battleships
Compare…
 “This is wrong.”
 “This has some strengths,
such as xxxx and yyyy.
What it needs to get a
better mark is…”
Delivering the assumptions
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Assess against your ILOs
Include some higher level questions
Be clear about your criteria…
…and share these with your students
Show them some typical questions beforehand
and discuss them in class
Use a wide range of marks to discriminate
between students…
…which may mean that you have to go back and
adjust your marks.
Marking practice
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Mark this essay giving it a percentage mark.
Resolutions?