Overview

The separation of a course into units can often mean that assessments across the whole course are fragmented and can lead to over-assessment. A high assessment load or bunching of assessments at particular times of the year can push students to take a surface approach to their learning (Tomas and Jessop, 2019) and increases the likelihood of academic misconduct such as collusion and the use of third parties and artificial intelligence. If the scheduling of assessment is not considered on a course-wide basis students can struggle to meet deadlines to a high standard. They are forced to adopt strategic approaches where they choose to put more effort into some units than others in an attempt to maximise their overall outcomes. The issue of assessment load is often framed as an issue of student time management rather than a systemic university and sector-wide problem. If we want students to succeed they need to be given the time and space to adopt deep learning approaches and consolidate their skills and knowledge.

Scheduling assessments

Choice and flexibility can help reduce the assessment load and stress by allowing students to use assessment formats that suit their strengths and topics that particularly motivate them.

Approaches to managing assessment load and scheduling include taking a course-level approach to assessment. Examples of this approach might involve:

• Instead of having multiple essays in a year of study, break the multiple skills needed to write an essay into component parts and assess those components in different units. One unit could have a literature review, one unit an analysis, one unit an opinion piece and so on.
  
  
• Consider integrative assessments at the end of a year that focus on course learning outcomes rather than unit learning outcomes.
  
  

Integrative, synoptic or programme-level assessments are approaches to assessment that go beyond the confines of the unit. The Bradford University Programme Assessment Strategies (PASS) project was a funded project that explored these approaches and is still being updated.

The TESTA methodology is a useful way of auditing the assessments on a course and making significant changes to help enhance student learning and success.