Assessment as a conversation in business degree programmes

Abstract

Learning with friends, families, peer groups and professionals should be recognized as significant, and be valued and used in formal processes in higher education (Ashwin, 2016, p 22).

There is a large body of literature on methods of assessment in higher education, however according to Race (2014, p 72), NSS results continue to reflect student dissatisfaction with assessment and feedback.

One of the roles of assessment is to provide information to enable students to improve their performance (Ashwin, 2016, p 252). It is acknowledged that assessment plays a major role in student learning (Shute, 2008; Race, 2014). Traditionally, the completion of many degree assessments has tended to be a lone activity involving the writing of individual reports, essays, literature reviews and examinations. Information on assessment requirements and the relevant business models, theory and applied examples is provided through tutor-student dialogue in lectures, seminars and tutorials, and tutors using both face-to-face and online communication provide formative feedback. Typically, the student working as an independent individual produces the assessment and the written or audio summative feedback is returned to the individual student with the marked work.

The business professions are characterized by individuals operating in a networked world, a world that features coproduction between individuals within businesses, coproduction between businesses and consumers (McCulloch, 2009) and collaboration between organizations (Wastiau, 2015). This session aims to explore the role of dialogue in assessment: the group will consider examples of how students could be encouraged to take up additional opportunities for formative feedback during the assessment process by entering into conversation with their peers and other professionals and for continuing that dialogue as feed-forward after the return of marks. We will also explore ways of further embedding that conversation into our summative feedback processes.