Assessment for Inclusion in Education

Assessment for Inclusion

• Assessment should ensure diverse students are not disadvantaged
• Seeks to rethink contemporary strategies in assessment design within higher education

Key Concepts

• Assessment has multiple functions
• One function is assessing if students meet the required level
• Under performance is often seen as a student problem related to diversity/background
• Assessments can be inequitable and exclude students inappropriately
• Inclusive assessment design should look beyond simplistic notions of disability and social equity
• Considers and accounts for diversity on many spectra
• Assessment for inclusion ensures diverse students are not disadvantaged through assessment practices

Problematising Assumptions

• Assumptions in assessment design are questioned
• Central concerns related to assessment traditions
• Expectations
• Academic integrity
• Contemporary design strategies such as authentic and programmatic assessment, and assessment for distinctiveness are used to illustrate inclusion

Assessment in Higher Education

• It should not disadvantage diverse students based on irrelevant characteristics or abilities
• All students require support to demonstrate capability in an equitable manner
• Student diversity has increased with more students from equity groups and non-traditional backgrounds pursuing higher education

Traditional Views

• Underperformance by equity groups has been seen as a student problem
• Accommodations and support addressed this
• The possibility that assessment does not fit its purpose is ignored
• Assessment must discriminate between those who have and have not met outcomes at the required level
• Assessment should challenge students to move out of their comfort zone to promote development
• Assessment might discriminate through requirements irrelevant to outcomes
• When it calls into question the validity of assessment, assessment design must be reconsidered

Inclusion in Higher Education

• Inclusion applies to disability and social inclusion
• Includes disability access, learning disabilities, and mental/physical health conditions
• Includes widening participation initiatives
• People represented by groupings are not homogenous
• One study identified 17 subgroups from 35 participants
• Action should focus on addressing problems in conventional assessments rather than dwelling on equity groups
• What happens at an institution is more important than who attends

Inclusive Assessment Tasks

• Assessment tasks must be problematised and examined deeply
• Those responsible for assessment must pay explicit attention
• They are prone to see assessments from their own perspectives
• Those perspectives are by people who have thrived on dominant assessment approaches and share similar values
• Extra clarity of assessment instructions will not promote inclusion
• It is a myth that if specified in detail, everyone will understand

Assessment for Inclusion

• Recognises diversity in student learning
• Endeavours to ensure no student is discriminated against by features other than their ability to meet standards
• Aims to prompt conversations by practitioners and researchers
• Considers what assessment for inclusion is
• Reviews aspects that create unnecessary barriers

Common concerns & Contemporary Approaches

• Common assessment design concerns are identified and interrogated
• Explores how contemporary approaches could be better harnessed
• Relevant literature is drawn on

What is Meant by Assessment for Inclusion?

• Discussions on improving student equity within higher education assessment have occurred for some time
• Inclusive assessment: student capabilities accounted for proactively
• Supersedes
  • Contingent assessment: adapting existing assessment with accommodations
  • Alternative assessment: offering a different assessment
• Hockings (2010) defined inclusive assessment as fair and effective methods that enable students to demonstrate their full potential

Identifying Issues

• Assessment advantages and disadvantages particular groups of students
• Providing a choice of alternative assessment methods could mitigate this
• Current assessment methods introduce barriers to a wide range of students
• Recommendations have not translated into widespread improved practice

McArthur's Concept of Assessment for Social Justice

• Addresses justice of assessment within higher education
• Addresses assessment's role in nurturing learning for greater social justice
• Critiques the assumption that fair treatment results in just outcomes
• Fairness can be thought of in terms of procedural fairness and fairness of outcomes
• A focus on procedure alone impairs inclusion by promoting narrow conceptions of success
• A multifaceted conception should support equitable and just outcomes

Assessment for Inclusion

• Captures the spirit and intention that a diverse range of students and their strengths/capabilities should be accounted for when designing assessment of learning
• Aims toward accounting for and promoting diversity in society
• Introducing a new term to better negotiate praxis: joining theory and practice
• Acts as a lever to achieve change in assessment and through assessment
• Aims to achieve assessment for social justice by focusing on design
• Design needs to consider the immediate task and the course/institutional context

Diversity in Assessment

• Assessment for inclusion recognises that diversity can exist on many spectra
• Intersectionality needs to be considered
• Any learner must only be judged in terms of the necessities of what a task seeks to assess
• Characteristics should be continually questioned to detect fixed associations with task capability; tasks should be discriminatory

Additional Considerations

• Acknowledge contextual factors that might impact demonstration of capability
• Since assessment exists within a given context there are limits to its generalisability
• As new social insights emerge, new ways in which we are not yet inclusive emerge
• Designing assessment for inclusion should be an ongoing, future-facing process

Current Problems With Assessment Design

• A common challenge in assessment for inclusion is the difference between 'work as imagined' and 'work as done'
• It is easier to imagine optimal practices than implement them in messy, real-world environments
• Any form of assessment is constructed within a time and place, so inclusive practices need to account for this
• Explores how assessment operates in practice, focusing on assumptions accompanying academic traditions

Standardised Requirements

• Specific requirements for assessment design are considered sacrosanct
• Contemporary assessment tends toward solo, unaided performance at the expense of working with others
• Removes students from normal resources that graduates would typically access
• Limitations have more impact on those who might gain the most from an inclusive approach
• Limitations are not an inherent requirement, so should be questioned
• Examining assumptions provides insights into how educators may need to think differently
• Promoting inclusive practices can be incrementally improving assessment or course design
• The interrelationship between good assessment design and inclusivity is exemplified

Exclusionary Practices

• Exclusionary practices are addressed by providing adjustments
• Students are diverse with individual circumstances, so assessment is unlikely to account for everyone's needs
• Adjustments are not a panacea and often place an additional burden
• Teachers often tinker at the peripheries and do not deal with the central components, format, and content
• Therefore, problematising adjustments and their relationship to assumptions about assessment is important for inclusion

Core Requirements

• Only taking an adjustments-focused approach implies that core requirements of assessment are unquestionable
• The COVID-19 pandemic altered what was previously 'untouchable'
• Different processes could be designed to support assessment for inclusion
• Inclusive education has many conceptual articles, but there is less empirical work
• What exists focuses on student perceptions
• Interventions have focused on students with disabilities and additional languages
• These typically tinker, rather than questioning central tenets
• Only one study has explored the impact on student performance through comparison of grades
• There is little focused discussion regarding broader implementation within higher education
• It is important to engage with common assessment dilemmas

Three Concerns for Inclusion

• Research has noted that educators commonly externalise barriers to prevent change
• Educators refer to policies, procedures, or professional accreditation that limit alterations
• This section probes key arguments:
  • 'this is a necessary part of how we do things here'
  • 'we need to assess these learning outcomes'
  • 'students will cheat if we don't assess in this way'

Entrenched Perspectives

• Across disciplines and professions, academics have worldviews and epistemic bases for assessment
• Local institution-specific assessment traditions may exist
• Students will also bring experiences and assumptions
• Contribute to establishing valid assessments, and who should succeed
• Students can be influenced by social norms/stereotypes and impact motivation
• Students might interpret messages about who belongs through particular activities
• Solutions commonly employed to redress student deficits encourage conformity
• Engaging staff in discussion to reflect may create opportunities for change
• Low-stakes early assessment might build student confidence

Judgement of Success

• Work is always judged against some concept of quality
• Notions of quality may be explicit standards or criteria or held implicitly
• Present standards-based frameworks require learning outcomes to be identified
• Learning outcomes that assessment is seeking to judge should be examined
• Outcomes can become rigid and cement practices in place when it is the outcomes that need to be challenged
• An unreflexive interpretation can lead to exclusion
• Students might meet requirements if defined in other ways
• Assessments do involve compromises between interests to meet stakeholder needs
• Discussions should be convened to consider stakeholders (accreditation bodies and industry)
• The outcomes and assessment of them are defined and what designs might be acceptable should be considered

Preventing Cheating

• Academic dishonesty shapes much of what is done
• The closed-book exam is employed out of fear that students will cheat
• Preventing threat to validity and satisfying equality
• Approaches to address cheating come with consequences for inclusion
• To stop sharing answers, educators elect to have only one exam sitting, but the inability to choose is exclusionary
• Exclusionary effects of exams has a research literature around test anxiety
• Remote proctored exams have been criticised as ableist due to features that expect unobstructed neurotypical eye movements

Addressing Cheating

• Addressing the problems of cheating while being inclusive is a worthwhile challenge
• Academic integrity aims to develop students' ability to work with integrity
• Integrity education and honour codes alone do not address the problem
• Institutions deploy assessment security such as invigilated exams or text-matching software
• Approaches enforce a limited set of normative behaviours that can reinforce exclusion
• Upholding integrity is important
• Must be enacted in ways that embrace inclusion
• Any practice must be judged against its effects on the most diverse students

Repurposing Ideas

• Overlap between good assessment design practice and assessment for inclusion
• Contemporary approaches were not originally developed for inclusion
• Illustrates how three assessment design approaches can be harnessed to serve an inclusion agenda
• Encourages consideration of how ideas might be adopted in local contexts

Authentic Assessment

• Authentic tasks and assessment are useful to engage students in learning and for the world beyond university
• Assessment needs to engage the whole person; integrate what students know, how they act, and who they are
• Authenticity is individually perceived, there are several dimensions to design that might contribute

Dimensions

• Attributes of the task: realism in context and problems in professional settings
• Students' perceptions of alignment contribute to authenticity
• Even when designed into assessment: if the student does not perceive the assessment to fit with goals, it can render the assessment inauthentic and lead to instrumentalism and cynicism
• Authentic assessment must create space for students to integrate their values, capabilities, and future aspirations
• Could enhance inclusivity since students are able to explore ways of learning and working which are suitable

Authentic Tasks & Authenticity

• Authenticity may involve topics or tasks which are challenging and provoke anxiety/stress
• Students must be suitably supported
• Be proactive in mitigating harms by setting expectations and offering services
• The death of a loved one might impact learning in a hospital placement
• 'Authentic restrictions' encompasses societal/community/workplace expectations about acceptable ways
• A journalist might have a deadline, but be able to access spelling, grammar and thesaurus facilities
• Tasks that closely parallel what a practitioner does may not be seen as authentic

Gague & Maintain Authenticity

• Stakeholders including students should be involved in assessment design to provide feedback and enable refinements
• Considerations: legitimacy for an authentic assessment task to not be adjustable
• When is a task necessary and non-negotiable for professional practice?
• How can students to participate and learn in these situations?

Programmatic Assessment

• Assessment decisions are made at the level of individual course units.
• The outcomes of course units may be well addressed, but not the overall program
• Assessment for inclusion needs to be considered at both levels
• Programme outcomes need particular attention since they can make or break overall student success
• Has a gatekeeper function which facilitates access to professional worlds
• Considering programme assessment activities is crucial to maintain accreditation and/or credibility

Recognizing Assessment

• It involves compromises to meet varied stakeholder needs
• The outcomes of individual assessments might be synthesised to provide a broader picture of capabilities
• Learning and demonstration can be viewed across time and space
• This could account for a constellation of imperfect approaches that serve some student groups better
• Equitable opportunities to demonstrate capability should be available
• Focusing on student development may also flow on effects for student learning

Considerations

• At which point should certain capabilities be assessed and assured?
• Should accreditation be placed on a few high-stakes tasks?
• How can a broader assessment landscape be represented to students?

Assessment for Distinctiveness

• Students must understand and portray evidence that distinguishes them from their peers
• Preferences of employers are variable
• The same qualifications occupy roles where different subsets of skills and attributes are valued
• Students need opportunities to differentiate themselves, and assessment plays a role
• It is naïve to assume that offering the same assessment provides equal opportunities; conditions are never identical
• Assessment fails to acknowledge the value of different perspectives
• Reduces opportunities to build on prior learning and pursue growth relevant to aspirations
• Assessment could be designed in more open-ended ways
• This aligns with Universal Design for Learning which suggests a variety of means of engagement and expression

Learning

• Learning should be offered
• Criteria need to be developed to take into account this range of possibilities
• The ways in which universities judge and represent achievement have lagged
• Considerations include:
  • Support students to generate diverse artefacts for assessment
  • Demonstrate strengths, aspirations and experience
  • Boundaries that might be set