Associate Professor, Business School • Foundation Year and Master’s Level

 

Qualifications

BSc (Hons) Primary Teaching with IT (QTS) – First Class • PCAP – Post Graduate Certificate in Academic Practice • PGCert Coaching and Mentoring • SFHEA – Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy • PhD – Science, Agriculture and Engineering

 

Dr Sarah Crabbe elaborates her approach to tailoring the YSJ Generic Assessment Descriptors (GAD) to her subject area.

 

How and Why Did Sarah Adjust the GAD to her Context?

Sarah was inspired by her work with international students to use the GAD (the university’s standard approach to assessment marking) to tailor her assessment criteria to her subject area and context, making it easier for students to know what was expected. In her Foundation Year classes, Sarah noted that despite having good conversational language, some of her students struggled with the vocabulary typically used for learning in the UK, which made it more challenging for them to understand the relevance of the GAD to their assessments. She explains that differences in meaning can be subtle – for example, what is the difference between ‘analysis’ and ‘critical analysis’? It can be difficult for a lecturer, let alone a student, to explain what the expectations are.

Moreover, some students indicated that the format of the GAD differed significantly from the sorts of assessment criteria typically used for learning in their home countries. Sarah concluded that she needed to work closely with her students to help them understand how their learning would be measured. She states, “if we haven’t done a good enough job of explaining what they need to do, how can they be expected to achieve?” So, Sarah set about developing subject-specific marking criteria to help her students make sense of the assessments that were set.

 

What Did Tailoring the GAD Look Like in Practice?

Sarah highlights four principles that she used to tailor the GAD for use with her students:

• Clarity: By giving a more detailed explanation of what is required in the assignment to achieve each grade, Sarah helps to guide her students. This involves using subject-specific language, referring to the specific skills she expects her students to develop during their course.
• Example: Sarah takes the term ‘Research Skills’ from the YSJ GAD and adds more detail to her marking criteria:‘Research Methods and Methodology: You have found and used appropriate literature to support the examples of work and your own additional writing’. This approach helps to make clear what the student must do to fulfil that aspect of the work.

 

• Simpler wording: Sarah’s interpretation of the GAD uses commonly recognised words to make it easier to understand. For instance, she simplifies the term ‘breadth of sources’ by using ‘number of sources’ instead. This is a straightforward change that can be implemented quickly and can be used to bring in terminology relevant to the subject area.

 

• Equal weighting: Sarah decided that her portfolio module would give equal weighting to all the criteria, again in the name of simplification. For Sarah, this approach encourages students to take all of the criteria into account and ‘tick all the boxes’, thus helping them to achieve higher grades overall.

 

• Highlighting: When giving feedback, Sarah includes sections of the GAD, highlighting what the student has done well and what needs to be added or improved. This provides another opportunity for students to engage with and familiarise themselves with the GAD.

 

 

The Benefits of Tailoring the GAD

Sarah identifies three main benefits to her approach to interpreting the GAD, based on feedback from students and other staff testing this approach. These are:

• An easier marking process: The highlighting method makes it easy to see where students have achieved and what they need to work on next. The students also benefit from an improved understanding of how the lecturer has marked their work.

 

• Criteria specific to the lecturer: Giving clear, tailored assessment criteria, with wording and explanations that are consistent from the assignment brief through to feedback, aids clarity, making it easier to understand the rationale behind the final feedback and grade.

 

• Student-focused feedback: The combination of simplified language, highlighted criteria and the use of equal weighting means that students can see quickly and easily where they have achieved and what needs to be improved.

 

Recommendations for Implementing a Tailored GAD

As well as making the changes outlined above, Sarah offers some additional suggestions for colleagues planning to adjust the GAD to their context.

• Justify the assessment marking criteria to your students: Ensure students understand how the work will be marked. This is especially important for those who struggle to interpret academic English or who are new to the grading format used at your institution.

 

• Get a sense check from a colleague: Talk about your modifications with someone else – or even try out the GAD yourself, as if you were a student completing the assessment. This will give you the opportunity to anticipate problems and make any changes needed ahead of time.

 

Conclusions

Tailoring the GAD in a way that makes it more subject-specific and user-friendly has been a useful step in improving assessment processes in Sarah’s subject area. She has received positive feedback from both staff and students, and hopes that such approaches will be adopted more widely at YSJ. An additional benefit is that adjusting the GAD responds to the need for inclusive practice in the classroom, which can be supported further through seminar discussion of the GAD and in student tutorials. Importantly, understanding the GAD as a cornerstone of the whole assessment and feedback process can help improve consistency and efficiency, thus providing benefits to colleagues and students alike.

 

By Amber Thomas and Megan Orgill, York St John University.