Abstract
BackgroundDespite growing evidence of the benefits of including assessment for learning strategies within programmes of assessment, practical implementation of these approaches is often problematical. Organisational culture change is often hindered by personal and collective beliefs which encourage adherence to the existing organisational paradigm. We aimed to explore how these beliefs influenced proposals to redesign a summative assessment culture in order to improve students’ use of assessment-related feedback.MethodsUsing the principles of participatory design, a mixed group comprising medical students, clinical teachers and senior faculty members was challenged to develop radical solutions to improve the use of post-assessment feedback. Follow-up interviews were conducted with individual members of the group to explore their personal beliefs about the proposed redesign. Data were analysed using a socio-cultural lens.ResultsProposed changes were dominated by a shared belief in the primacy of the summative assessment paradigm, which prevented radical redesign solutions from being accepted by group members. Participants’ prior assessment experiences strongly influenced proposals for change. As participants had largely only experienced a summative assessment culture, they found it difficult to conceptualise radical change in the assessment culture. Although all group members participated, students were less successful at persuading the group to adopt their ideas. Faculty members and clinical teachers often used indirect techniques to close down discussions. The strength of individual beliefs became more apparent in the follow-up interviews.ConclusionsNaïve epistemologies and prior personal experiences were influential in the assessment redesign but were usually not expressed explicitly in a group setting, perhaps because of cultural conventions of politeness. In order to successfully implement a change in assessment culture, firmly-held intuitive beliefs about summative assessment will need to be clearly understood as a first step.
Highlights
Despite growing evidence of the benefits of including assessment for learning strategies within programmes of assessment, practical implementation of these approaches is often problematical
Designers of assessment programmes may be attracted by the theoretical concepts of programmatic assessment, they may be hesitant to proceed with a radical change of assessment culture because of the reported
Three principal ideas were discussed in detail in the whole group: the need for more authentic assessment, the potential to give feedback without the issuing of grades and the role of one-to-one mentoring to support the interpretation of the feedback
Summary
Despite growing evidence of the benefits of including assessment for learning strategies within programmes of assessment, practical implementation of these approaches is often problematical. According to Johnson [11], who applies a socio-cultural perspective to organisational change, one of the reasons for this inertia is because the managers responsible for change share common core underlying beliefs and assumptions about the organisational culture. Stories are often relayed down through an organisation, recalling significant events and people from the organisation’s history These serve as demonstrations of what the organisation values. If managers are faced with pressure to change, they will typically redesign in a way which is consistent with the prevailing paradigm and the wider cultural web of the organisation. Johnson [11] argues that the cultural web needs to be made explicit before more radical change can be contemplated
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