Dr Grazyna Grace Lipowska-Bhalla is a Lecturer in Cancer Biology within the School of Medical Sciences and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA). She serves as the Programme Director for the postgraduate programme in Cancer Pathology, whilst also acting as academic lead for several individual modules.

Grace is deeply committed to fostering an inclusive and collaborative learning environment where students can flourish rather than merely cope. With expertise in inclusive and effective assessment practices, Grace is dedicated to refining programme-level assessment strategies to align more closely with learning outcomes and the evolving demands of the current educational landscape.

In this blog post, Grace reflects on the importance of taking a holistic, programme-level view on assessment and highlights key red flags that may signal misalignment or deeper issues in assessment design.

The Current Landscape

Since the recent pandemic, the higher education sector has been experiencing a major shift in its approaches to teaching and learning driven by rapid technological developments, evolving student demographics, and increasing economic pressures. This complex landscape necessitates universities to adjust their teaching and assessment strategies while maintaining academic excellence.

Why Assessment Matters

Assessment is an integral component of higher education, serving multiple critical functions in the teaching and learning cycle. While its contribution to supporting student learning and shaping overall learning experience is well recognised, its vital role in ensuring academic standards and informing teaching and curriculum design is equally important. Given this complex role, it is important to ensure that assessments remain fit for purpose in an ever-changing educational landscape.

Recent results from the National Student Survey (NSS) suggest that the higher education sector is finding it difficult to keep up with the pace of change required in assessment practices. Although the University of Manchester has made progress in some areas, overall satisfaction in this area is still well below the sector benchmark. This highlights an urgent need for a critical review and improvements of assessment practices.

The Assessment Puzzle: Why the Whole Programme Picture Matters?

The shift to digital tools and blended learning, followed by the rapid emergence of generative AI technologies, has put academic standards and integrity to the test, calling for changes in pedagogical and assessment practices. While relevant assessment enhancements have been introduced in response to these changes, they have often been designed for individual modules without broader coordination across the programme.

Such uncoordinated enhancements can lead to unexpected consequences and a shift toward less effective assessment environments, which may negatively impact student engagement and promote short-term surface learning rather than deep engagement with programme content.

Strong, well-designed assessments at the module level are frequently seen as indicators of academic quality. However, strong individual assessments do not necessarily add up to a coherent and effective programme-wide strategy. Reviewing assessments across all modules—piecing them together like parts of a puzzle — offers a programme-level perspective that can reveal gaps, overlaps, and inconsistencies that are often invisible at the module level.

This coordinated, programme-wide approach not only enables more effective assessment patterns but also results in deeper engagement and ensures that each assessment plays a distinct role in the learning process. Ultimately, it enriches the student experience and maintains the academic integrity of the programme.

Red Flags of Misalignment

There are several red flags indicating misalignment and deeper issues in assessment design that can be uncovered when looking at assessments through a programme-wide lens. While some of these issues can be easily identified, for example through student feedback, uncovering others requires structured assessment review and deeper analysis. The most common red flags and their impact on learning experience are discussed below.

1. Overassessment

Module assessments usually adapt a multi-component format with several assessment tasks contributing to each module’s final mark. While such format enables more diverse and inclusive assessment practices, it also brings a risk of excessive proliferation of assessment tasks that can lead to overassessment when not controlled at the programme level. Overassessment frequently creates a heavy workload for both students and assessment teams leading to lower quality of work, surface learning and overall burnout.

2. Assessment Bunching

Program-level overassessment is largely responsible for clustering of a multiple assessments from one or more modules in a short period. Such clustering can lead to increase in student stress and anxiety levels, usually resulting in poorer academic performance. Along negative impact on student wellbeing, assessment bunching can also force students to adopt a more strategic approach to learning, prioritizing marks and deadlines over in-depth engagement with course materials.

3. Limited Range of Assessment Methods

Relying on traditional or narrow range of evaluation methods can disadvantage some learning styles and reduce their chances to acquire valuable skills. Learners who would likely succeed in other assessment formats could be limited by the lack of relevant and diverse opportunities, making the learning process less accessible and less inclusive. Poor diversity of assessment formats also limits engagement in authentic tasks that enable the development of skills and a mindset to tackle real-life challenges. As such students might not be adequately prepared for their future roles and life beyond the university.

4. Low Number of Formative Assessments

As the formative assessment doesn’t directly contribute to the final mark, its role in a learning process is often underestimated leading to limited formative tasks across modules and programmes. While primary focus of summative assessment is on the final result, formative assessment focuses on the learning process rather than the awarded mark, providing a more structured and guided learning experience. A limited access to formative opportunities often results in worse final outcomes because of fewer opportunities to monitor progress, refine understanding and learn from mistakes in a formative process.

5. Lack of Constructive Alignment

Constructive alignment is a fundamental feature of a well-designed curriculum, in which assessment tasks are aligned with two other key elements, intended learning outcomes (ILOs) and teaching activities. This alignment enables coherent and meaningful learning experience. When this alignment is missing, students may be assessed on skills or knowledge that were not taught or emphasised during their learning. This misalignment leads to confusion and frustration, as students struggle to understand what is expected from them, ultimately affecting their confidence and academic performance.

6. Uneven ILOs Evaluation

Poor assessment design and lack of coherent programme assessment strategy may result in some ILOs being over-evaluated, while others entirely overlooked. Although it’s not necessary to assess every ILO within a programme, imbalance can lead to significant gaps in student development. As a result, not all required skills and competencies may be adequately assessed across the curriculum, leaving students underprepared in crucial areas of their development.

Takeaway Message

Each assessment should serve a clear purpose within the broader programme context, certifying the development of key skills and competencies.  Strong, well-constructed module-level assessments are essential, but they do not necessarily add up to a coherent and effective programme-wide strategy without coordination at the programme level. To ensure a meaningful learning experience, all module assessments and any enhancements of assessment practices should be carefully reviewed through the programme-wide lens to ensure they align with the programme assessment strategy and don’t cause unintended consequences such as overassessment, poor diversity of methods, imbalance between summative and formative opportunities, or constructive misalignment.

Taking a holistic view not only ensures the integrity of the assessment strategy but, more importantly, creates a supportive and purposeful learning environment.

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