Co-creation in assessment and feedback

Why should I consider co-creation in assessment and feedback?

Learners often express dissatisfaction with assessment and feedback, for example in module evaluation surveys and the NSS. Feedback  from learners often mentions assessment load, difficulties in interpreting the criteria and understanding the relevance of assessments as well as the timeliness of feedback and negative impacts on mental health and wellbeing.

Co-creation values students' expertise in their own experience and their active contribution as partners in the process. This approach introduces fresh perspectives and new insights from students. By co-creating with students, meanings are negotiated and clarified, processes and responsibilities are shared and both students and staff get to know what is involved in assessing and receiving feedback from the perspective of the other partner.

What are the benefits of including co-creation in my assessment and feedback design?

• Co-creation creates opportunities for staff and students to have conversations about assessment and feedback. In terms of feedback, the dialogue and trust implied can help with the 'recognition of feedback practices as partnership praxis' (Matthews et al 2023);
• It helps learners build assessment literacy: getting to know the processes, challenges and approaches available and developing higher order thinking skills (Winstone & Carless 2019);
• It promotes inclusion by integrating a diverse range of perspectives and exploring choice and diversity (Sambell, Brown and Adamson 2022);
• It promotes the design of authentic assessments that enable students to apply their knowledge to real-world problems that prepare them for their next steps (Cook-Sather and Matthews 2021);
• It demystifies assessment and promotes the notion of 'assessment for and as learning' (Sambell and Graham 2011)

How can I get started?

Co-creation in assessment and feedback does not have to mean a huge upheaval of your assessment design. Even integrating small elements of co-creation will make a difference in students’ engagement in assessment. You may wish to start your co-creation journey with small interventions, and as you and your students gain experience, expand your approach.

Examples of co-creation in assessment and feedback include:

• Formative activities such as peer feedback
• Co-marking sample essays
• MCQ co-design (for example using Peerwise)
• Co-designing marking rubrics
• Involving students in module development and assessment design (as part of curriculum development)
• Co-designing essay questions
• Deciding assessment weighting
• Co-assessing - peer assessment and feedback

What principles should I consider?

Start by considering the principles for partnership in assessment and feedback in higher education. Bovill, Matthews, & Hinchcliffe (2021) have identified the following principles:

Are there examples and frameworks to help me?

Consider different levels of involvement. One useful framework which helps us to consider the different roles learners and educators can adopt at different stages of assessment and feedback, is the Participation Matrix. Bovill, Matthews, & Hinchcliffe (2021, 12) recommend viewing co-creation as a spectrum through which both learners and educators need to build their confidence - from informing to getting involved in partnership.

Designing assessment methods

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Examples of practice

Students designing their own assessment method in the form of an asset
At The University of Edinburgh, Andy Cross and Liz Grant run an interdisciplinary course at the Edinburgh Futures Institute, called ‘Currents: Understanding and Addressing Global Challenges‘. They ask students to ‘create an asset’ in order to address the learning outcomes. Students have been highly creative, and have developed for example, a board game; a poem; a fictional journal entry; a proposal for a light exhibition; and many other types of asset.

Students design essay questions
Peter Kruschwitz teaches Classics at the University of Vienna, and for the last 10 years has invited students to design their own essay questions. He gives the students 6-8 keywords to ensure they stay focused on the broad topic area, but students are encouraged to write essay titles that enable them to focus and place emphasis on areas of particular interest. Over the years, Peter Kruschwitz has seen a consistently higher performance from students, linked to greater engagement, than when he used to set the essay question for students (see Cook-Sather et al 2014 for more information).

Choice between two assessments
At University College Dublin (UCD), Geraldine O’Neill led a project inviting staff from different disciplines across UCD, to create a choice of two different assessments in their course which students could choose between. Staff provided information sheets about the two assessments in each course so that students could make an informed choice about which assessment they would complete. Although attention was paid to ensuring the assessments were equivalent, the outcomes challenged staff perceptions that students might be motivated to choose an assessment that could be considered in any way easier (for more information see O’Neill, 2010).

Grading

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Examples of practice

Students mark sample essays
Dan Bernstein teaches a Psychology class at the University of Kansas in the US. A week before the exam he brings to class a rubric that helps articulate his assessment expectations to the class, along with three examples of unmarked previous student essays. The essays are written on questions not included in the exam. Students then use the rubric to mark the essays, and then they have a class discussion. Dan Bernstein points out particular strengths and weaknesses in the essays, and clearly articulates his expectations (see Cook-Sather et al 2014 for more information).

Co-assessing a presentation
At the University of Glasgow, Susan Deeley teaches Public Policy. In her Service Learning course, she invites students to co-assess a presentation, where students award themselves a grade and she also awards them a grade. She then meets all the students individually to agree upon a final grade. She encourages the students to negotiate and articulate a rationale for their performance. If they can’t reach agreement on the grade, Susan Deeley retains responsibility for awarding a final grade, but she is transparent and open with students about her rationale for decisions (Deeley 2014).

Feedback

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Examples of practice

Designing multiple choice questions, answering others’ MCQs, and rating the quality of the MCQs designed by others
Paul Denny at the University of Auckland designed a piece of software called ‘Peerwise’, which enables students to design multiple choice questions (MCQs), answer others’ MCQs, and rate the quality of the MCQs designed by others. Students have to write the correct answer with a rationale for why the correct answer is correct, as well as several potentially believable incorrect answers and the rationale for why these are incorrect. Staff in different subjects who use Peerwise at different universities have been known to use good quality student questions within their MCQ question banks for summative exams (see Denny et al, 2008)

Students designing marking rubrics combined with peer and self assessment
At the University of Cumbria, Meer & Chapman (2015) involved students in co-designing marking rubrics/criteria in their Human Resource Development course. They included three iterations of designing marking criteria. The first was designed by the staff alone, the second designed by the students alone, and the third designed in a collaboration between the staff and students. Alongside being involved in designing marking criteria, students are invited to undertake peer and self assessment using the criteria. Students reported gaining a much better understanding of what staff are looking for in assessments.

Co-creation in assessment and feedback at Queen Mary

Educators and Learners Co-Creation of Exercises and Question Bank
Project leader: Dr Matthew Tang; Project team member: Dr Mona Jaber; Project Adviser: Dr Ana Cabral

One of the recurring questions from our students in Transnational Educational (TNE) is the request for exercises and exam-style practice papers with suggested solutions. While there is a rich library of past exam papers, many of our students rely on the recitation of materials and even suggested solutions at the approach of exams, rather than taking the past exam papers as useful learning resources.

In this project, we experiment with the idea of asking the students to write their own exercises or even a simulated exam paper under the guidance of the lecturers. Through the process, the students will enhance their understanding of the lecture material to a level that they can draft exercises, and then try to answer questions drafted by their fellow classmates. This requires much more active learning and thinking than working on an existing paper. At the end of the activity, the questions co-created by students will form a question bank valuable to current and prospective students.

What are the challenges?

It is important to acknowledge that power relations continue to exist between learner and educator even when  assessment and feedback is ‘mutually constructed and co- dependent’ (Boud and Molloy 2013, 711), or in co-assessment (Deeley 2014), where students and staff agree appropriate grades following critical appraisal and discussion'.  According to Deeley (2017), the main challenges and risks include: resistance to partnership working from students and staff; a sense of vulnerability that arises from changing the learned habits and norms of learning and teaching; and ensuring partnership is not tokenistic (Bovill 2014). However,  Bovill et al. (2015) argues that many of these challenges can be overcome and can be re-envisaged as pedagogical opportunities leading to rewarding outcomes from partnership work.