Using assessment criteria as learning criteria: a case study in psychology

Abstract

In this paper it is argued that the current trend of making assessment criteria more explicit in higher education may have a deleterious effect on students' learning. Helping students to concentrate on assessment criteria paradoxically means that they may take a strategic approach and end up focusing on the superficial aspects of their assessment tasks, rather than engaging in meaningful learning activity. One solution might be to re‐conceptualize assessment criteria as ‘learning criteria’ using Biggs' principle of constructive alignment in curriculum development and delivery. To illustrate how this can work in practice, a case study is presented detailing the development of a counselling psychology module over several years to progressively incorporate a text‐based adaptation of the problem‐based learning approach. Student evaluations of the approach are presented together with some examples of feedback given on students' work to demonstrate the effects on students' understanding and functioning knowledge

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