Equality and assessment in law

In their paper Melanie Crofts and Simon Sneddon (University of Northampton) presented findings from their research into issues of achievement and equality, discussing assessment methods and their impact on non-traditional students.

Melanie and Simon’s slides are embedded below, and their full paper appeared in the Web Journal of Current Legal Issues 2009(3) in June 2009.

In January 2008 the Higher Education Academy and the Equality Challenge Unit published Ethnicity, gender and degree attainment, a report confirming the findings of previous research suggesting that “even after controlling for the majority of contributory factors, being from an ethnic minority group…was still found to have a statistically significant and negative effect on degree attainment. The research also showed that females are more likely to obtain higher degree classification than males, except when it comes to obtaining a first.”

One of the key recommendations of the report was that institutions “should ensure that their systematic review processes include consideration of equalities issues and a robust evaluation of learning, teaching and assessment practices in light of any discovered attainment variation”. A vital part of looking into the issue of differential adverse impact in relation to degree attainment is consideration of assessment strategies.

Melanie and Simon presented the findings of their research looking at the compulsory modules taken by law students over a five year period with the aim of identifying ways in which retention and achievement rates can be improved for all students without compromising academic standards. There is a differential impact on students based both on types of assessment and on considerations of gender, ethnicity, age or declared disability, which has led to proposals being made for the modifcation of teaching methods, the design of new programmes and the revision of the curriculum at Northampton.

About the presenters
Melanie Crofts is a senior lecturer in law at Northampton and teaches on a variety of modules. Her main areas of interest are in immigration and issues relating to discrimination, equality and diversity, particularly assessment strategies in law. She sits on the School of Social Sciences’ equality and diversity committee and is a member of the equality and diversity research group. Melanie has recently started a PhD relating to discrimination law in higher education.

Simon Sneddon is a senior lecturer in law at Northampton. He came to Northampton after a research post at Cambridge, where he was the legal member of an interdisciplinary project investigating environmental valuation in Europe. Simon’s research interests cover nuclear power (his PhD is looking at post-war nuclear power law in the UK), and learning and teaching ideas, particularly assessment strategies.

Last Modified: 9 July 2010