Student/Teacher perspectives on assessment

When thinking about assessment it is useful to consider the student perspective on assessment as well as that of the lecturer and how the goal of assessment motivates students in the learning process.

Assessment defines what students regard as important, how they spend their time and how they come to see themselves as students and then as graduates... if you want to change student learning then change the methods of assessment (Brown, G. et al, 1997)

To the teacher, summative assessment is at the end of the teaching-learning sequence of events, but to the student it is at the beginning. If the intended outcomes are reflected in the assessment, as indicated by the downward arrow, the teaching activities of the teacher and the learning activities of the student are both directed towards the same goal. In preparing for the assessments, students will be learning the intended outcomes (Biggs and Tang 2007 p169).

(Biggs and Tang 2007 p169)