Students as Partners: assessment

Students as Partners (SaP) is an approach in which equitable partnerships and trust are established through open dialogue, mutual respect, clear roles and expectations, and willingness to ‘hand over the reins’ to students (Millmore, 2021) as active co-creators in assessment and feedback for their learning.

The SaP approach has gained momentum in recent years as widening participation initiatives have seen students from diverse backgrounds and from various career/education pathways entering university study. These ‘non-traditional’ students are quickly becoming the majority and universities have needed to become more innovative in assessment practices, if learning is the goal of teaching. Universities are starting to understand the benefits of tapping into the invaluable skills, knowledges and life experience that these students bring across many areas of curriculum, as well as to improved assessment practices.

Why Students as Partners in assessment?

Assessment and feedback for learning are strong motivators for students. When this is harnessed with the agency of student-educator partnerships to co-create meaningful assessment and feedback experiences, it becomes a powerful experience of learning. This can have benefits beyond the focus of the partnership itself in terms of additional skills of leadership, communication, teamwork, organisation and facilitation, not to mention increased confidence and can contribute to desirable qualities of employability (Millmore, 2021; see also Blum, 2020).

Key principles for a Students as Partners approach to assessment

There are five key principles for a SaP approach in the co-creation of assessment for learning that includes open dialogue, shared responsibility, fostering of trust, nurturing inclusive practices and connection to curriculum and pedagogy (Bovill, Matthews & Hinchcliffe, 2021, p. 6) outlined as:

• Developing assessment and feedback dialogue: student-educator partners commit to transparency and ongoing dialogic interaction as they work towards a shared understanding
• Sharing responsibility for assessment and feedback: student-educator partners set clear expectations about negotiating roles in assessment and feedback, with acknowledgement that existing teacher-student power dynamics and roles will be disrupted
• Creating an assessment and feedback environment that fosters trust: dialogue that fosters positive student-educator relationships and integrity in the assessment and feedback process in a way that supports the building of trust
• Nurturing inclusive assessment and feedback processes: adoption of assessment for learning approach which acknowledges students as knowledge-holders and creators of knowledge who can showcase, highlight and reflect culturally and linguistically diverse ways of knowing
• Connect partnership in assessment and feedback with curriculum and pedagogy: Bring assessment and feedback as significant student motivators together with student agency in partnership through co-creating assessment experiences which are legitimised via embedding in learning and teaching processes in the curriculum.

References

Bovill, C., Matthews, K. & Hinchcliffe, T. (2021), Students as Partners in Assessment (SPiA). Advance HE. https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/student-partnership-assessment-spia

Blum, S. (2020). Ungrading: Why rating students undermines learning (and what to do instead). West Virginia University Press.

Millmore, A. (2021). Hand over the reins: A case study for student-staff partnership in designing module assessments. International Journal for Students as Partners, 5(1). 86-96. https://doi.org/10.15173/ijsap.v5i1.4382