This paper presents findings from a case study on the impact of high stakes oral performance assessment on third year mathematics students' approaches to learning (Entwistle and Ramsden, Understanding student learning, 1983). We choose oral performance assessment as this mode of assessment differs substantially from written exams for its dialogic nature and because variation of assessment methods is seen to be very important in an otherwise very uniform assessment diet. We found that students perceived the assessment to require conceptual understanding over memory and were more likely to employ revision strategies conducive to deep learning (akin to conceptual understanding) when preparing for the oral performance assessment than when preparing for a written exam. Moreover, they reported to have engaged and interacted in lectures more than they would have otherwise, another characteristic conducive to deep learning approaches. We conclude by suggesting some implications for the summative assessment of mathematics at university level. Keywords Case study. Oral performance assessment. Students' approaches to learning. University mathematics Mathematics is an academic discipline that employs very few summative assessment methods at university level and researchers (Steen, 2006) have often called for a variety of its summative assessment. Amongst the methods in use, written, timed exams dominate and indeed in a recent survey of assessment methods in England and Wales, Iannone and Simpson (2011) found the written, timed exam to be the modal assessment method across their sample. At the same time, the general education literature perceives uniformity of summative assessment as problematic (Brown, Bull, & Pendlebury, 2013) and indicates that traditional written timed exams alone are not suitable to assess all the competencies that may be desirable to assess (Birenbaum et al., 2006).

. (2015) 'Students' views of oral performance assessment in mathematics :straddling the`assessment of ' and`assessment for' learning divide.', Assessment and evaluation in higher education., 40 (7). 971-987 . Further information on publisher's website: Additional information:Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. Students' views of oral performance assessment in mathematics:straddling the 'assessment of' and 'assessment for' learning divide This paper explores the views of a group of students who took an oral performance assessment in a first year mathematics module. Such assessments are unusual for most subjects in the UK, but particularly within the generally homogenous assessment diet of undergraduate mathematics. The evidence presented here resonates with some, but not all, of the existing literature on oral assessment and suggests that, despite concerns about anxiety and fairness, students see oral assessments as encouraging a focus on understanding, being relatively authentic and reactive to their needs. We argue that, suitably implemented, oral assessment may be a viable assessment method for straddling the 'assessment for' and 'assessment of' learning divide in higher education.

Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. Existing research into students' preferences for assessment methods has been developed from a restricted sample: in particular, the voice of students in the 'hard-pure sciences' has rarely been heard. We conducted a mixed method study to explore mathematics students' preferences of assessment methods. In contrast to the message from the general assessment literature, we found that mathematics students differentially prefer traditional assessment methods such as closed book examination; they perceive them to be fairer than innovative methods and they perceive traditional methods to be the best discriminators of mathematical ability.We also found that although students prefer to be assessed by traditional methods they are also concerned by the mix of methods they encounter during their degree, suggesting that more account needs to be taken about the students' views of this mix. We discuss the impact of the results on the way general findings about assessment preference should be interpreted.

This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in Teaching mathematics and its applications following peer review. The version of record Iannone, P. and Simpson, A. (2011) 'The summative assessment diet : how we assess in mathematics degrees.', Teaching mathematics and its applications., 30 (4). pp.