Using student views to develop a formative assessment policy in a sixth-form History department

<p>This project sought to explore the views of sixth-form history students concerning the efficacy of their department’s formative assessment policy, and builds on my part 2 research into student views of self and peer marking. The project first consisted of a literature review in order to pro...

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Main Author: Hawkins, E
Other Authors: Burn, K
Format: Thesis
Published: 2016
Subjects:
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author Hawkins, E
author2 Burn, K
author_facet Burn, K
Hawkins, E
author_sort Hawkins, E
collection OXFORD
description <p>This project sought to explore the views of sixth-form history students concerning the efficacy of their department’s formative assessment policy, and builds on my part 2 research into student views of self and peer marking. The project first consisted of a literature review in order to provide the grounding needed to adapt the department’s current assessment policy. This policy was then implemented by all staff in the department at the start of the academic year. Questionnaires and group interviews were carried out to explore how the students responded to this policy, with the intention that their responses would then be mediated by staff to produce an adapted policy for the start of the next academic year.</p> <p>One of the key findings of this project was that despite increased student confidence in self assessment, students still reported considerable reliance on the teacher. Among other conclusions drawn, it will ultimately be suggested that to further shift the balance of power in assessment away from the teacher, students need greater ownership not only over the assessment of their work, but also the assessment policy itself. Therefore, although the original aim of the project was for the staff to redraft the department’s assessment policy based on student views, instead the outcome developed into a decision to give students a role in regularly revising the policy, encouraging a more organic and embedded approach.</p> <p>Although this approach to policy-making in general is far from novel, it is rarely applied specifically to formative assessment, where educationalists tend to empower students within the narrow boundaries of teacher-determined assessment activities. It is still often the teacher ultimately who ‘owns’ and ‘provides’ formative assessment activities, with students required only to play their ascribed role. Therefore, this approach contrasts considerably with some of the contemporary literature that sees formative assessment as a concern of teacher pedagogy rather than student ownership.</p>
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spelling oxford-uuid:5be97013-13f5-4e60-85e9-dbcc1ba92b502023-05-22T14:33:00ZUsing student views to develop a formative assessment policy in a sixth-form History departmentThesishttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_bdccuuid:5be97013-13f5-4e60-85e9-dbcc1ba92b50EducationORA Deposit2016Hawkins, EBurn, KHopfenbeck, T<p>This project sought to explore the views of sixth-form history students concerning the efficacy of their department’s formative assessment policy, and builds on my part 2 research into student views of self and peer marking. The project first consisted of a literature review in order to provide the grounding needed to adapt the department’s current assessment policy. This policy was then implemented by all staff in the department at the start of the academic year. Questionnaires and group interviews were carried out to explore how the students responded to this policy, with the intention that their responses would then be mediated by staff to produce an adapted policy for the start of the next academic year.</p> <p>One of the key findings of this project was that despite increased student confidence in self assessment, students still reported considerable reliance on the teacher. Among other conclusions drawn, it will ultimately be suggested that to further shift the balance of power in assessment away from the teacher, students need greater ownership not only over the assessment of their work, but also the assessment policy itself. Therefore, although the original aim of the project was for the staff to redraft the department’s assessment policy based on student views, instead the outcome developed into a decision to give students a role in regularly revising the policy, encouraging a more organic and embedded approach.</p> <p>Although this approach to policy-making in general is far from novel, it is rarely applied specifically to formative assessment, where educationalists tend to empower students within the narrow boundaries of teacher-determined assessment activities. It is still often the teacher ultimately who ‘owns’ and ‘provides’ formative assessment activities, with students required only to play their ascribed role. Therefore, this approach contrasts considerably with some of the contemporary literature that sees formative assessment as a concern of teacher pedagogy rather than student ownership.</p>
spellingShingle Education
Hawkins, E
Using student views to develop a formative assessment policy in a sixth-form History department
title Using student views to develop a formative assessment policy in a sixth-form History department
title_full Using student views to develop a formative assessment policy in a sixth-form History department
title_fullStr Using student views to develop a formative assessment policy in a sixth-form History department
title_full_unstemmed Using student views to develop a formative assessment policy in a sixth-form History department
title_short Using student views to develop a formative assessment policy in a sixth-form History department
title_sort using student views to develop a formative assessment policy in a sixth form history department
topic Education
work_keys_str_mv AT hawkinse usingstudentviewstodevelopaformativeassessmentpolicyinasixthformhistorydepartment