EAT is a higher education project concerned with Enhancing Equity, Agency, and Transparency in Assessment Practices in universities.
The project aims to support educators in developing and implementing high quality, innovative assessment practices by use of a research-informed participatory assessment framework . It addresses a significant higher education (HE) issue to substantially enhance the quality of assessment practices.
EAT emphasises Equity, Agency and Transparency in assessment. It seeks to tackle issues of central importance to universities world-wide, ensuring that assessment is fit for purpose in promoting the knowledge, skills and understanding that graduates need to thrive in the 4th industrial revolution, and that assessment design provides equal opportunities for all students to excel.
To enhance assessment practices significantly, an understanding of integrative, inclusive and self-regulatory approaches to assessment is essential. The project addresses the significant rhetoric-reality disconnect between research into assessment and its implementation in HE practice. Assessment should be an enabler of learning, but often poor assessment design is a constraint that unintentionally limits learning. Well-designed assessment lies at the heart of good teaching and high impact pedagogies within HE. Excellent assessment and feedback promotes equality of opportunity, drives curriculum change, directs advances in knowledge and understanding, and supports life-long learning.
EAT focuses on: Implementation of relevant and authentic assessment; identification and development of core competencies to support learner ownership of assessment, required as a life-skill; and training for academics and students to realise such goals. The project aims to produce a suite of practical resources to support academic staff in developing a student-centred approach to assessment, and to share good practice.
Outputs
The EAT focus will be on:
(i) supporting development of learner self-regulatory skills through development of a self-regulatory competency framework;
(ii) providing case studies of how an integrative approach to assessment can be implemented, sensitive to cultural differences, to support learner agency and success;
(iii) developing training approaches (courses and materials) to support understanding and implementation of integrative assessment, including a continuing professional development assessment programme;
(iv) developing an assessment standards framework to raise standards of assessment practice within/across institutions, with potential for scaling up across the sector; and
(v) creating an assessment recognition scheme to acknowledge and reward competency in assessment.
EAT promotes a participatory and evidence-informed approach to support shared understanding of effective assessment practices for all learners. This implementation-evaluative approach aims to enhance the quality of HE assessment practices at local, national, and international levels, and to be sector-leading in its promotion of research-informed, student-centred, inclusive assessment.
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