What and who is assessment for?

Assessment for learning: guide for law teachers

This is part of a guide, compiled by Alison Bone (University of Brighton) and Karen Hinett (UKCLE) in 2002, providing an overview of the chief issues involved in assessment and how it affects learning and teaching in law.

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How can assessment systems provide evidence of accountability at institutional level and enhance the personal qualities of individual knowledge?

Astin (1993) outlines what he describes as two competing functions:

• resource and reputation
• talent development

Resource and reputation refers to the grades, league tables and statistics compiled by institutions and government to extend and maintain reputations as providers of quality education. These are used as evidence of accountability and comprise an assessment ‘discourse’ used primarily to communicate standards to stakeholders.

By contrast, talent development relates to the formative comments, feedback and guidance offered to individuals to help them achieve and improve their learning. ‘Learning discourse’ is essentially about self-improvement and understanding, and is reserved for the communication of information between teacher and learner.

Knight (1995) outlines a number of possible functions for assessment, which can be broken down into functions that support assessment for learning and assessment for accountability.

Biggs (1996) outlines a similar paradigm in terms of quantitative and qualitative traditions. In the quantitative tradition learning is conceived as the aggregate of knowledge. Systems measure how much an individual knows and modules become discrete units of facts and discrete units which added together offer some indication of how much the student knows.

In the qualitative tradition students are expected to interpret and incorporate new material into their existing understanding such that that learning is developmental.

Hagar and Butler (1996) also identify two models of assessment; the scientific and judgmental. The scientific focuses on the assessment of well founded knowledge, closed problems with definite answers and theory. The judgmental model centres on the integration of theory to practice, the application of knowledge, skills and personal qualities and accumulated reflective experience.

It is the adoption of a judgmental model over a scientific one that distinguishes problem based learning from traditional content based assessment. The judgmental model elevates the status of application and subjectivity over factual knowledge.

Clearly different systems are required to serve the two different functions of assessment for accountability and assessment for learning.

Assessment for learning

So how do we offer assessment for learning? We suggest it involves and often requires staff to:

• provide students with opportunities to engage in the learning process and to discover for themselves what constitutes good work
• integrate skills, knowledge of the law, ability to communicate and personal dispositions as part of an holistic approach to the teaching and practice of law
• think about how we learn best and offer opportunities for students to discuss, practice, experience and feel what it is to be a lawyer
• abandon, or at least put on hold, traditional conceptions of what it is to be a law teacher
  As LeBrun and Johnstone (1994) highlight:

“If we wish our graduates to be able to speak clearly, act ethically, contribute responsibly, think analytically and critically, write appropriately, argue convincingly, and be able to reflect and modify their behaviour where appropriate, we need to begin to develop these capacities in law schools…Knowledge of all the law in one area might have been achievable once, but it is not today. We need to demonstrate to our students how professionals respond to the challenge of the growth in the law itself.”

In thinking about assessment we need to ascertain the extent to which the learner has competence in several domains, including:

• cognitive – knowledge, analysis, communication, critical thought
• meta-cognitive – planning, monitoring, self- regulation
• social – leading discussions, persuading, working in group
• affective – perseverance, internal motivation, responsibility and independence

References

Last Modified: 4 June 2010