Using Negotiation in Summative Assessment to Encourage Critical Thinking

Abstract

The authoritarian structure of Higher Education encourages learners to seek to please their assessor. This is antipathetic to critical thinking. Self‐assessment can help to break this conformist tendency and encourage critical thinking, which is defined as the ability to carry out self‐directed inquiry and make reasoned judgements on the results. If assessment greatly affects how learners approach learning, strategies that seek to encourage critical thinking can be undermined by an autocratic assessment system. Real power over assessment can be shared with (but not abdicated to) learners via a process of negotiation within a framework of non‐negotiable standards. In this model, self‐assessment becomes part of the overall process of assessment; not replacing teacher assessment, but supplementing it, using a process of negotiation and moderation to ensure the maintenance of standards and public confidence in those standards.