Assessment and feedback
How course assessment is carried out and monitored, provide information about marking (scales, consistency and moderation) and identify the best practices in giving and using feedback.
In a School concerned with the study of archaeology, classics and history, assessment evaluates students’ understanding of the past but also (especially at higher levels) how well you grasp the enterprise of studying the past ethically, responsibly and authoritatively.
Assessment also evaluates your mastery of various skills which can be applied either to graduate scholarship or to other pursuits after graduation in the world of work.
"Benchmarks" set out by the public educational authorities (most recently in 2007) identify a range of skills intrinsic to the study of archaeology, classics/ancient history and history which employers and graduate schools can reasonably expect you to possess.
Examples of these skills common to all three disciplines in the School include:
- an understanding of other cultures and ways of critically engaging with them
- an understanding of how to draw valid conclusions about the past
- a command of bibliographical and library research skills
- an ability to select and apply a variety of critical approaches to problems, informed by uneven evidence
- intellectual rigour and mental agility
- an ability to marshal argument lucidly, coherently and concisely, both orally and in writing
- an ability to write and think under pressure and to meet firm deadlines.
Your courses below the surface much of the time - work to help students to develop skills like these. The marks and feedback you receive in your coursework are working towards this objective, as well as evaluating your understanding of the past and its study. If you graduate with a good result, you should be in possession of all of these 'benchmark' skills, and feel able to refer to them when seeking employment.
There is no single 'right way' to teach or assess students in order to test such skills and support their development. A wide range of approaches can be found in the School. You should by all means give thought to how courses are taught and assessed before you select them. In line with the 'benchmark' framework any of the following student exercises (in a number of combinations) could take place as part of your coursework in this School:
- essays (or other extended written discussions of a body of material)
- source or 'gobbet' analyses
- identification of and/or commentary about historical artefacts
- use of IT in accessing course materials and/or carrying out/completing/submitting assigned tasks
- seminar discussions (or other forms of small group discussion)
- oral/verbal presentations of historical material
- note-taking at lectures
- projects jointly undertaken with other students ('peer-assisted learning')
- analysis of moving images (films)
- first-hand analysis of material culture
- revision for formal examinations
- dissertations characterised by self-direction and intellectual independence
- exercises in peer assessment/reflection.
How each exercise relates to graduate skills should be fairly clear. Different exercises involve different skills in different proportions. Variability in types of assessment is a necessary consequence of our efforts to diversify your studies and experiences across four years, and to give you chances to try your hand at a range of different exercises. Course descriptions should help you to select courses that enable you to play to your strengths whilst working on your weaknesses.
Obviously the scope is limited for directly assessing your abilities, and providing feedback concerning them. For example, no one is going mark the quality of your note-taking at lectures! That skill is evaluated indirectly (for example in exam performance). IT skills too are rarely directly assessed but can affect the work you submit for the better (or worse).
Certain exercises are directly assessed, but intermittently. In a single tutorial, for example, you might become involved in peer assessment, verbal presentation of ideas and commenting on an historical artefact or document. In certain courses these exercises are assigned a mark. In others they receive more indirect assessment (for example an assessed written overview of all your tutorial activities and thoughts). In still other courses the 'assessment' provided by the tutor may be in the form of informal verbal comments and advice without any mark attached.
Some exercises (particularly essays and other substantial written work) are formally assessed and marked almost without exception. Exercises of this type enjoy such priority because (as you can see for yourself) they are the most economical way of testing students in a wide range of the core skills associated with their discipline. Unsurprisingly they feature in almost every course in the School; along with formal exams, they tend to contribute the lion’s share of final course marks.