Balanced (UOW Assessment & Feedback Principle)

The principle of balanced assessment ensures that optimal time and a logical sequence is used to allow learners to meet an assessment task’s criteria and demonstrate their progress towards a subject’s learning outcomes. At all levels, assessment tasks should build upon one another and be evenly spaced throughout the teaching session. This gives learners opportunities to receive formal and informal feedback and make improvements as well as reflect on their progress (either formally or informally).

To be balanced, assessment should:

1. Include both formative and summative assessment opportunities throughout learning
2. Build capacity within learners for self-reflection, and
3. Scaffold learners to build relevant knowledge and skills for undertaking assessment.

These features are explored in greater detail in the following video by Professor David Boud.

Why?

Incorporating balance when designing and delivering assessments will ensure tasks capture learners’ actual capacity to demonstrate achievement of (or progress toward) subject learning outcomes. When learners acquire new knowledge and skills from assessment tasks delivered during a subject (or course) their performance in summative assessment tasks is less likely to be impacted by uneven study loads, weak foundational knowledge and understanding, and lack of practice opportunities. The principle of balanced assessment also helps achieve other UOW Assessment & Feedback Principles, particularly those of purposefully aligned assessment and assessment that is quality assured.

How?

The following questions can help evaluate how both new and existing assessments could be strengthened by using new, balanced strategies.

Formative & Summative Assessment

Are your formal, summative assessments (e.g., final examinations) adequately supported by formal and informal formative assessment opportunities during the teaching session?

Related Strategies:

• Map learning experiences to formal assessment tasks to identify opportunities for links between concepts and ideas and informal assessment
• Scaffold learners by having assessment tasks build upon each other as the teaching session progresses. This provides opportunities for formative assessment.
• Adopt a holistic view of assessment by comparing the formative and summative assessment tasks in your subject with other related subjects, and across a course if necessary.

Assessment feedback

Are there adequate opportunities for learners to gain feedback on their learning progress from self-reflective or peer-reviewed activities?

Related Strategies:

• Include opportunities for peer review and feedback aligned with formal assessment tasks, where possible.
• Provide explicit guidance to learners about how to reach expected levels of performance, with a focus on actions and associated reasoning or thinking.
• Promote links between content and assessments to real-world applications, to support self-reflective practices after graduation.

Scaffolded Assessment

Are formal and informal assessment tasks sequenced in a way that supports the gradual development of understanding while progressing towards and eventually achieving learning outcomes at the subject and course-level?

Related Strategies

• Adopt a holistic view of students’ learning by comparing learning outcomes with other related subjects in the course.
• Meet with teaching staff to discuss what is being done in tutorials and labs to informally scaffold students’ understanding of formal assessments.
• Map feedback opportunities to formal assessment dates to ensure learners can apply feedback in subsequent tasks.