ERIC Number: EJ1303242
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2021
Pages: 14
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1356-2517
EISSN: N/A
Performing Standards: A Critical Perspective on the Contemporary Use of Standards in Assessment
Teaching in Higher Education, v26 n5 p728-741 2021
This paper offers a critical and theoretical exploration of the contemporary use of standards in assessment in higher education. It outlines three discourses of assessment standards. Each perspective foregrounds particular realities and backgrounds others, and so influences practice in particular taken-for-granted ways. The assumptions of these perspectives are identified, and the advantages and disadvantages of each of the existing discourses discussed. The dominant perspective prompts educators to make standards 'transparent' for students, inferring stability through a written explication. The sociocultural perspective highlights a tacit and more dynamic view of standards, suggesting that standards are built by expert consensus and students must learn to meet this community expectation. The sociomaterial perspective also infers a dynamic view, but one that is co-produced through social and material assemblages. Thinking about standards as performance, a dynamic and shifting human-material activity, encourages a focus on emergent activity in the design of standards, moderation and assessment.
Descriptors: Academic Standards, Student Evaluation, Higher Education, College Students, Teacher Expectations of Students, Design, Educational Benefits, Alternative Assessment
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A