After reading Allan Davies’ (2012) paper, I am reflecting on assessment and assessment criteria. I must admit that (except for the first couple of times I marked student work) I’ve always quite enjoyed what the ambiguity of assessment criteria affords — how the written assessment of submitted work varies slightly between tutors as perceptual opinions and varying awareness of details within the work are layered into the feedback. This variation, of course, does not present within the actual distinct grade, as these are mutually agreed and benchmarked. Through personal and undocumented observation, the writing is often encouragingly varied between marker — slight but specific tutorial emphasis on certain assessment criteria or descriptors are reoccurring. This array of discrete observations between tutors all written in a lecturer’s characteristic style highlights to me how important the discerning eye is to the art and design academic institution.
As Davies (2012) says “students only need to understand whether they have addressed / met the outcome or not” and therefore I’m not convinced that the subtle idiosyncratic differences between tutorial feedback are consistently perceived by students themselves. These subtleties, however, are enjoyable for me to read as a tutor if you sneakily read another tutor’s feedback on the UAL Assessment Feedback tool. What indeed this tutor focused on to write about compared to what I would have said about this student’s submission, is perhaps a minor but common example of what Davies (2012) suggests — a focus on meaningfulness, rather than measurability. What is meaningful depends on who is looking — right? Not in the grandiose administrative sense of hitting or not hitting an assessment criterion, no, in the sense of what small but specific thing I am going to write about in the 150 word (for parity) feedback form. This small discretionary act is for me where I get to really say, within reason, what I like. Knowing that if I genuinely feel or perceive something and if needed, I could justify it, then it’s within the parameters of academic acceptance and it cannot change. To me, there is something in that. Could this feeling I get be a possible freedom within what Davies (2012) calls the bureaucracy of outcomes in art and design, and the resulting overwhelming of both teachers and students?
I had a recent opportunity to defend nuance within written feedback. I marked 32 y2 BA students, the unit lead co-benchmarked 7 students, it was interesting that the unit lead had not marked at UAL before — but had at another university in the engineering department. During benchmarking variation in writing styles came up: they asked me to be more like them in content. I said it probably wasn’t possible because different elements of the submission would excite me compared to what presented to them, but I would be happy to include any specific things if required. Satisfied with my response, they allowed me to continue making my challenging decisions over which students evidenced “development of intuition, inventiveness, imagination, visualisation, risk-taking, etc.” (Davies, 2012)
References
Danvers, J. (2007) “Assessment in the arts: qualitative and quantitative approaches,” Networks, University of Brighton, (1), pp. 14–19.
Davies, A. (2012) ‘Learning outcomes and assessment criteria in art and design. What’s the recurring problem?’, Networks, Issue 18. Available at: http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/projects/networks/issue-18-july-2012/learning-outcomes-and-assessment-criteria-in-art-and-design.-whats-the-recurring-problem (Accessed: Feb 18, 2024).