Learning and assessment credibility: The design of examination strategies in a changing learning environment

Abstract

Learning environments for higher education have changed considerably in the last 20 years, especially since the advent of the internet. In addition to the change in learning technologies has come an increasing politicisation of higher education and in the UK a change from being virtually free in the 1980s to one where annual costs (Sheffield Press Release, 2012) can now be in excess of £9000 p.a. Since there are various routes to attaining higher education and commercialisation and competition are being introduced, the output of the systems, i.e. a student’s learning, is a factor which needs very careful attention and a moderating system is required, external to the educational providers, to ensure even quality. This should test a candidate’s learning, not the educational process. Academic skills are one measure of a candidate, but other qualities are often sought by employers, such as flexibility and breadth of learning to ensure that a company is able to respond to new market challenges and opportunities. Traditional examinations do not always test such skills. It is suggested in this paper, that in order to accommodate the wide variety of routes to education, some candidates might register only for examinations at a university and not the course itself. In addition some ways of obtaining more information about a candidate’s abilities are suggested.

https://doi.org/10.34105/j.kmel.2013.05.008