What are the most effective ways to assess students in higher education?

Formative assessment is the best way to evaluate our students while they learn. How many times in the past was assessment just a number on our record that only informed us whether our progress had passed the threshold or not? But, what had we failed at? How could we improve? All of this, we did not know. With formative assessment, we have the opportunity to provide valuable feedback to our students that allows them to improve, learn, and progress towards passing or achieving a higher grade, while also motivating them. A clear commitment to quality education.

Formative assessment is a critical tool to assess how students are learning but more importantly it is critical to assess how you are teaching. It is critical for instructors to take this feedback and adjust their pedagogy in real time to meet students where they are.

Multi-modal formative assessment remains the most efficient assessment strategy to assess students and monitor their progress at higher institutions. Inquiry-based/project-based assessment including group work is also helpful for a holistic approach to assessment within an active-based learning lens.

E-learning offers an intriguing possibility for teachers: the ability to provide learners with a diverse range of self-assessment activities. These activities enable them to independently gauge their comprehension of presented concepts, without their responses being documented. It's crucial to remember that learning doesn't solely occur through passive listening during lectures. True learning emerges from active engagement and practice. Self-assessment tasks facilitate this approach. This avenue grants learners the chance to swiftly obtain cognitive feedback on their grasp of studied material. As a learner, opting for courses incorporating self-assessment activities can significantly benefit your learning process!

It is critical that summative assessments align to what was taught and any expected prior knowledge. Additionally, they should be constructed to assess skills as discreetly as possible, meaning that when a students gets something right/wrong it should be evident what skills they have mastered/failed to master

This method of assessment is underused at all levels of education and the reason is that too few instructors have been able to fit this form factor of assessment into the time allowed of their course. One way to do that is the blend authentic and formative assessment into something more longitudinal that can be observed over time.

This assessment method is one of the best at recreating real-life scenarios that actually prepare students for the workforce. Unfortunately, many professors cannot apply this because they may not know how to do so effectively. The biggest obstacle is time and the amount of students per class. This is a method that is better applied to smaller groups with enough time to develop the tasks, to discuss the plans, and to receive adequate feedback. As professors, something we can do is incorporate elements of this type of evaluation into other types and blend them so that we can still keep time management & content distribution throughout the semester in mind. Critical thinking skills are paramount today & this method helps develop that greatly.

When administered correctly, peer assessments can be a powerful learning tool and experience for students. The first step is to promote an environment that leads to productive feedback. Achieve this environment by setting "ground rules" for the exercise. Ground rules, including positive and constructive feedback loops, are suited to peer evaluation. As an experiential learning platform, peer assessment will help build skills students can take into their post-graduation careers. Peer assessments are among the tools that faculty can use to help students develop a growth mindset. Giving and receiving feedback is a skill set that serves us throughout our lives.

Using technology for assessment can be a valuable tool for both educators and students. For teachers, technology can enable quicker delivery of assessment results to students (whether formative or summative) since self-generated feedback can be programmed based on the student's response. For students, it allows for multiple iterations (if set by the instructor) or even the ability to engage in practical assessment exercises at any time with different questions.

While all types of assessment are valuable if you want to create effective assessments for your students, you need to pay attention to how you design and communicate them. A good practice I always follow when I create or adopt a new course is to try all the assessments myself, following only the instructions given to the students. I also ask each tutor to do the same. This way, you can see for yourself how much depth and detail you can achieve within the word limit and provided resources. You also get a better grasp of the rubric and the criteria that distinguish high-quality work from a poor one. Once an inherited course had what looked like a great assessment, but when attempted, the required content was not doable within the word limit.

In order to properly assess students, it is advisable to schedule an exam in various formats, depending on the subject being taught. However, part of the assessment, preferably the concluding segment, should involve an oral examination, as it yields the most insightful evaluation. Indeed, since the teacher speaks directly to the student, he/she can get a nuanced understanding of the student's knowledge level. In my experience, a duration of approximately 15 minutes proves sufficient for a thorough assessment. This oral examination can be conducted either in-person or via videoconference. Additionally, maintaining a record of the examination is advisable, serving as a reference in case the student contests the assigned grade.

At a certain point, assessment should shift from micro-level content, to overarching content from all levels of the academic program. The best academic programs are those where each course builds on content from prior courses. At a certain point, the content of individual courses should be adding to the student’s overall body of knowledge in their field. Higher-level assessments that combine individual course content in the scope of the bigger picture will provide insight into both where the student is at on an individual level, but it will also provide quantitative data regarding how successful the program is at meeting its overall program objectives/outcomes.