David Carless: Excellence in university assessment: learning from award-winning practice

Abstract

The concept of ‘‘learning-oriented assessment’’ was coined by David Carless in 2003, which aims to promote a way of thinking that all assessment could target the development of productive student learning processes, regardless of their formative or summative nature. Since the introduction of the term, David Carless has devoted himself to the research of learning-oriented assessment and has published a series of relevant papers in a number of prestigious international journals. His recent book, ‘‘Excellence in University Assessment: learning from award-winning practice,’’ accounts for an ethnographical project on exploring the potential for learning-oriented assessment at the tertiary phase. Five awardwinning male teachers who teach different disciplines and some of their students were invited to participate in classroom observations and semi-structural interviews to conceptualize and exemplify a framework of learning-oriented assessment and to reveal the complexity of implementing learning-oriented assessment in classrooms. The book provides a student-centered perspective of assessment supported by classroom research evidence from multiple disciplines and informs the assessment practice in higher education by sharing good assessment practices of excellent university teachers. Carless’s book is a fascinating read for university leaders, staff developers, teachers, and researchers who are enthusiastic about assessment. ‘‘The art of compromise’’—the metaphor of good assessment—would arouse the reader’s interest at the very beginning of the book. Carless (2015, p. 44) believes that ‘‘enhancing student learning should be a primary aim for all assessment’’ when making compromise among competing priorities. Carless thinks that assessment would enhance student learning when assessment tasks support student learning, when students develop their evaluative expertise through activities that engage them in understanding quality and standards in their disciplines, and when feedback is forward-looking and feasible. These