Assessment for distinctiveness: recognising diversity of accomplishments

Abstract

Universities have responded to the expansion of higher education and restructuring of the labour market by redesigning curriculum to better emphasise transferable skills and embed pedagogies that contribute to graduate employability. However, the ways in which universities judge and share achievement still provides poor evidence of what students can do or the skills and personal attributes that inform job recruitment decisions. Furthermore, assessment provides little opportunity for students to develop the self-knowledge or evaluative judgement needed to portray their professional identity to different audiences. In this paper, we examine shortcomings of current approaches to assessment and propose four principles for redesign of 'assessment for distinctiveness' that recognises students' unique and complex achievements in ways that are relevant to employers, and enable students to understand and appropriately portray their achievements for different audiences.

A Bibliometric Review on Outcome-Based Learning for Graduate Employability: Mapping the Research Front

“…The findings reveal that the most applied methodologies in graduate employability literature are case studies, semi-structured questionnaire, and content analysis (Bilsland et al, 2019; Holdsworth et al, 2020; Jorre de St Jorre et al, 2019; Nghia et al, 2019; Sandri et al, 2018a; Schaefer et al, 2019). Only a few studies have used theoretical review technique (Clarke, 2018; Ramsgaard & Østergaard, 2018) and thematic analysis (Halibas et al, 2020; Hammer et al, 2018).…”

“…Jorre de St Jorre et al (2019) critically examined the assessment process of graduates and found that there is potential mismatch in what expectations universities have and how they wish to achieve those. Their findings reveal that there should be four principles which will assess the achievements of universities in graduate employability and outcome-based learnings: opportunities for demonstration of distinct and personalized achievement, assessment to foster evaluative judgment, multiple portrayals of achievements, and meaningful evidence of the achievement.…”

Moving beyond reasonable adjustments: supporting employability through inclusive assessment design

“…Whilst there is a need to view assessment as certifying learning, assessment also highlights to students what is important to learn, and can act as a vehicle for students to develop their unique capabilities and confidence in those areas (Jorre de St Jorre et al, 2021). Within this conception of assessment as contributing to learning, assessment can also support the development of graduate attributes: 'a range of skills beyond those that are discipline-specific, such as those described as life-long learning, generic, transferable or 'soft' skills.'…”

Networked Teaching: Overcoming the Barriers to Teaching Experiential Learning in Large Classes

“…Student learning and skill development in higher education are best achieved in authentic learning opportunities (Broadbent et al, 2018;Jorre de St Jorre et al, 2019). Leading scholars on experiential learning such as A. Y.…”