A Handbook for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Enhancing academic and Practice

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Teaching, supervising, learning
4 Levelness means assessing learning outcomes that are appropriate for each level of
study, as described in the QAA (2001) academic framework:
• Certificate
• Intermediate
• Honours
• Masters
• Doctoral
The framework gives generic qualification descriptors for each level based on learning
outcomes, with further subject-specific information in the QAA subject benchmark
statements.
5 Transparency is perhaps the principle that is most closely aligned with students’
perceptions of the fairness of the assessment system, and is also the principle that is
the easiest to ensure in practice. It includes:
• making sure that the assessment criteria and marking schemes for each
assessment task are published and open to all;
• ensuring that assessment tasks are published in good time;
• having a fair and equitable appeals and complaints process that is accessible to
all.
6 Inclusivity means making reasonable adjustments in assessing students who have
disabilities. The Special Educational Needs and Disability Act (SENDA, 2001) states
that disabled students are not to be substantially disadvantaged in comparison with
students who are not disabled. In terms of assessment this means making reasonable
adjustments; for example, students with:
• dyslexia should not be penalised for grammar and spelling in marking;
• a hearing disability should not be unfairly penalised in oral assessments for
communication skills;
• a visual impairment may have to be assessed orally.
Fundamental to these principles is the concept of objectivity which assumes that marking
is a science. This may be true in some disciplines but is hard to defend in others;
nevertheless, it is important to be as rigorous as possible in this most important facet of
being a university teacher. Unfortunately, little account is taken of the vast body of
research on assessment and on students’ experience of it (Rust, 2002, 2007). We know, for
example, that students are well aware of the inconsistencies between individual markers
and that their view is well founded. Small wonder that they rapidly become cynical and
that the rate of plagiarism and cheating is so high (Franklyn-Stokes and Newstead, 1995).
Rust (2007) claims that much current practice in marking is unfair, statistically invalid
and intellectually indefensible in spite of quality assurance procedures. He challenges the
view held by some academics in humanities and social sciences that it is possible to make
judgements about the quality of work to the precision of a percentage point, even were
lecturers to use the whole of a 100-point scale, which is relatively rare. He also casts doubt