Introduction to assessment in legal education

This resource forms part of a set of resources written by Karen Clegg (Graduate Training Unit, University of York) which are designed to help law teachers to adapt and improve their assessment practice.

Here, Karen highlights the context of assessment today and the drivers for change. See related pages in the toolbar on the right to view Karen’s other assessment resources. Links to examples and tools for use in the classroom are included, as well as prompt questions to help you think about how to use the case examples in your own teaching.

How assessment frames learning and shapes the student experience

Good assessment design goes to the heart of the student learning experience. It impacts upon course design, choice of teaching method as well as the students’ enjoyment of the subject and the quality of the educational experience.

Take a long hard look at your existing assessment methods and ask yourself the question: does my existing assessment provide challenge for the students or is it just ‘good enough’? If it’s the latter it’s time to do something different. There is nothing more depressing than to go through the motions of assessment pretending to yourself and the students that it’s contributing to the learning experience if it isn’t. David Boud, one of the leading experts in assessment points out that:

Students may well escape from poor teaching through their own endeavours, but they are trapped by the consequences of poor assessment, as it is something they are required to ensure if they want to graduate. The more we can engage students in assessment activities that are meaningful to them and which contribute to their learning, the more satisfying will be their experience of higher education.

— (Boud in Bryan & Clegg, 2006)

Drivers for change

A range of external influences on higher education institutions mean that the spotlight is being thrown on assessment practices.

Governments are requiring universities to justify their practices as never before, employers and professional groups are placing expectations on institutions to deliver graduates that can more effectively cope with the world of work and students are starting to realise that they can have considerable influence when they are contributing a greater proportion of university budgets.

— (Boud, ibid, 2006)

QAA audits, teaching quality assessments and the use of these measurements to produce national league tables have all contributed to closer scrutiny and a wider availability of data about what is going on in institutions. In recent years the National Student Satisfaction Survey (NSS) has highlighted the lack of student confidence in assessment and feedback practices. The Unistats site enables anyone who chooses to look to compare the results of three institutions against each section of the NSS. A brief interrogation of the data available for undergraduate law courses indicates that assessment and feedback is the area in which students are least satisfied.

Comparative data on assessment and feedback

A comparison of the results from the universities of Anglia Ruskin, Hull and Wolverhampton, all of whom have been kind enough to share copies of their feedback proforma (see Feedback, marking schemes and proforma) reveals that in the areas of teaching, interest in the course and library facilities all three institutions score in the 80% range. However, if we drill down a little further to the section on assessment on feedback, the data tells a different story. The question ‘Feedback on my work has been prompt’ reveals scores in the 50% range, ‘I have received detailed comments on my work’ scores are in the 40% range, and ‘Feedback on my work has helped me to clarify things I did not understand’ reveals, for some institutions, a dip into the 30% range. The point of this is not to embarrass the three institutions chosen. The fact each have been kind enough to supply examples of their feedback for public scrutiny indicates they are clearly taking positive action to enhance their practice. Besides, the data tells a consistently depressing story for all law courses for which information is available at pre- and post-1992 universities. The point is to illustrate that even when satisfaction with all other aspects of a law programme are high, assessment is consistently the area in which students feel less satisfied and supported – Alison Bone’s recent paper on Designing student learning by promoting formative assessment confirms this. What the NSS has done is to provide evidence that our current assessment and feedback practices, at least in the eyes of the fee paying students, are below the expected standard.

The results also confirm what much of the literature on assessment has indicated – that far from being a ‘bolt-on’, assessment frames learning and shapes the student experience of higher education. Seminal work on assessment in the 1970s and 1980s (Fransson 1977, Snyder 1971, Miller & Parlett 1974, Entwistle & Ramsden 1983) revealed that students strategically play ‘the assessment game’, making more effort to do well on the test than they do to understand and problematise the subject. Assessment that focuses on the end result or product of learning as tested in an examination or online test does not, on the whole, generate the critical inquiry we as academics hold so dear. If, as a sector, higher education provision and law courses continue to be measured by processes such as the NSS (and there is no indication that this practice will stop), then we have two choices – either we change our expectations of what students should be able to do at the end of a given programme, or we change our assessment practices in line with the students’ expectations.

Raising our game

To achieve more rigorous and useful feedback we need to be honest with ourselves about the role and purpose of assessment (see The role and purpose of assessment). We also need to develop ways of providing clear, timely feedback supported by explicit marking schemes and proforma (see Feedback, marking schemes and proforma). Due to costs, many institutions have reduced the volume of assessed work and therefore the amount of feedback needed.

The Open University (OU) is a notable exception. Partly due to the fact that all their students are distance learners, the OU uses a continual assessment model supported by detailed feedback on each aspect of work. “Each assignment receives extensive written tutor feedback, often consisting of several pages of overview comments in addition to the detailed comments written on the scripts themselves”. (Gibbs in Bryan & Clegg, 2006). The OU achieves this by employing and training a lot of tutors to provide online support. They also provide information for students about how to make the most of feedback.

Replicating this quality and volume of support may not be possible for all law schools. However, there are a number of ways in which the student learning experience can be enhanced. Law teachers wishing to try something new are encouraged to think about the use of reflection, self and peer assessment to encourage ‘assessment for learning’ (see Assessment for learning) and to engage students in discussions about the role and purpose of assessment (see The role and purpose of assessment).

What is clear is that law schools are going to have to raise their game when it comes to assessment. To secure the buying power of the consumer student they need to offer more than just an attractive campus and reputation. Hopefully the links and resources on these pages will help kick start the process of review needed.

Last Modified: 4 June 2010