A key to inclusion and access, inclusive assessment is also good pedagogy – and it may even make workloads more manageable.
By Claudia Civinini
“[Inclusive assessment] means that assessment should really take into account all the potential diverse range of students who might be undertaking that assessment."
Dr Joanna Tai, Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Research in Assessment and Digital Learning (CRADLE) at Deakin University, in Australia, is surprised to receive my request for an interview. The reason, she explains, is that research into inclusive assessment is still in its relative infancy.
While previous inclusivity efforts have focussed on increasing the number of people able to enter into the higher education system at a top level, particularly those with a disability, assessment is only now being examined. “We have started to address some of those issues [around access] and realised, ‘oh, hang on, assessment is still a bit of a problem’,” she says.
What constitutes inclusive assessment is quite broad, however, it all boils down to a fundamental concept.“[Inclusive assessment] means that assessment should really take into account all the potential diverse range of students who might be undertaking that assessment,” explains Dr Tai. “And it should proactively consider the ways in which assessment may or may not exclude people for reasons other than what we're really trying to assess or judge.”
As the inclusion question continues to mature, the focus has shifted beyond disability to now include more students who may instead experience situations and circumstances that limit or prevent access to assessment. Some of these circumstances revolve around factors that perpetuate exclusion for underrepresented groups: for example, access to resources or digital poverty.
You say it best
Rethinking assessment to make it more inclusive is a broad question, one that touches on several aspects of students’ backgrounds and university experiences. While there are skills, capabilities and knowledge that universities are expected to examine, flexibility can be used to design and plan assessment in order to make it more inclusive. For example, students could be given a choice of how they want to demonstrate their learning, or a say in the assessment deadlines.
Professor Chi Baik, Deputy Director of the Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education at the University of Melbourne, sees multiple benefits in giving students a stake in how they are assessed. “Giving students a choice about how they would like to demonstrate their achievement in the subject is important,” she says. “That’s sometimes controversial… but I think that this will support their motivation and contribute to their engagement with that assessment.”
If giving students a choice is not possible, Baik says it’s still important to consider a variety of assessment tasks across the year to foster equity. “No matter what assessment method is chosen, just the method itself will mean that some students probably perform better… than others. I think a much fairer assessment structure or system would be to have a variety of assessment types.”
Scaffolding confidence
Some types of assessment are inescapable, such as the class presentation, although this is not necessarily due to institutional decision-making. Employers are clear: they want graduates to have presentation skills. “We need to have that in the curriculum,” says Principal Adviser (Learning and Teaching) at UK-based Advance HE, Dr Kay Hack. “But how can we do that in an inclusive way?”
The problem, she posits, is that while most 18 to 19-year-olds aren’t likely to be too enthusiastic, lecturers “are not… able to differentiate somebody who is a bit anxious about giving a presentation all the way through to somebody who is going to be suicidal if you make them do it, and there's a huge spectrum there.”
Scaffolding confidence is crucial. For example, offering students the possibility to do a recorded presentation first. “It’s important to build in some support rather than saying: ‘we're expecting you to do this straight away’,” she says. “But I think students are realistic about what might be expected of them in the future.”
Dr Tai highlights that listening to students is key to identifying where flexibility may be needed. Giving a choice on the time of the day when the assessment takes place, for example, may have a big impact. “I didn't even realize that this sort of thing would be so important for some students, but they were saying, ‘Look, I take medication and it makes me drowsy in the morning. I'd really prefer to do it in the afternoon’,” she recounts. “It's not rocket science. But until we ask people, we don't know.”
Managing workload
While flexibility and openness at the classroom level are key, it’s crucial for lecturers to also get support. “If we're thinking about the university as a whole, having support for lecturers to redesign or rethink assessment, having forums to discuss how different people have tackled this, and being able to exchange those ideas and actually having university resources to implement different ways of assessing is also important,” says Dr Tai.
In the classroom, this translates to a very specific mindset: “who might my assessment be unintentionally excluding for reasons other than the capabilities that we are really interested in?
“Think about the invisible conditions… there are mental health conditions, chronic fatigue and other things that you don't see in a classroom. And if we extend this beyond disability, students with families, or with caring responsibilities, or those who are working full-time while studying, all of these things might impact on who can turn up when and where for an assessment.”
Dr Hack adds that a variety of assessment tasks could ensure academics’ workloads remain manageable. “You can't have an academic faced with a course of 30 students trying to deal with that on a case-by-case basis. You need to be thinking about it holistically across the programme team.”
Importantly, change needs time. Peter Miskell, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Education and Student Experience) at the University of Reading in the UK says: “We've built up our assessment systems over many years. Some people are much more open to change than others, and some of our programmes are linked to accrediting bodies and they are sometimes quite prescriptive about how we assess. So, our flexibility is sometimes a bit limited.
“But I think there are all sorts of different ways in which we are thinking about the way that we teach and the way we assess in order to build that flexibility into the system as a whole rather than putting on bespoke, additional solutions.”
The future of assessment
Dr Tai understands ideas about assessment are entrenched within an institution, but says in the future she hopes to see fewer exams and more creative ways of assessing. Most importantly, she thinks that inclusion will take centre stage in universities and become part of everybody’s job. “Inclusion has previously been the domain of a small group of equity practitioners, but it really should be something that everyone needs to consider because we all interact with people who need to be included,” she says.
“It's something that is a real issue for social justice, and everybody does assessment. Everyone's touched by assessment.”
The future of assessment will also depend on how academia will react to developments in generative AI. Dr Hack says that while some people have reacted to it by going back to a “pen and paper in a closed room” type of assessment, she thinks there is a more progressive and forward-thinking approach. “Our students, when they graduate, are going to have to work with generative AI. How are we supporting them to do that? How are we rethinking a more authentic assessment in order to drive that forward?
“We need to think about the assessment of the process of learning rather than the final product… seeing how you got to your answer, rather than ‘this is what my answer is’.”
Quality assurance in learning
Inclusion is a very important feature of the university experience. There are many different methods and tools higher education institutions could implement to embrace and integrate inclusive learning.
By Wonda Grobbelaar, Head of Quality Assurance, Western Caspian University
"Unconscious bias is when we reach a judgment based on our prior experience or our own deep-seated thought patterns, assumptions, or interpretations -and we’re not aware of doing it."
The famous quote by Nelson Mandela that, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”, reminds everyone about the impact education could have on making the world a better place. However, some are excluded from or do not have access to higher education because they are different. Maybe they just don’t look or act like you.
Education inclusiveness is a new approach to educating students with learning difficulties and disabilities together with normal students. The dictionary defines the word “inclusive” as simply something that doesn't leave any person or group out. All students should have access to and fully participate in learning alongside their peers. It means to take into consideration educational, cultural & social backgrounds, physical and sensory impairment - as well as mental well-being. All students are entitled to a learning experience that respects diversity, enables participation, removes barriers, and considers a variety of learning needs and preferences.
Higher education should really committo inclusion in learning and teaching. This would look likecontinuously looking for ways to include all students in the learning experience. Previous research studies have indicated that a sense of belonging is positively associated with academic success. If higher education is not paying attention to the inclusiveness of teaching and learning, students may be less able to learn if they feel they are not included in lessons or feel that they belong (Healey & Stroman, 2021). As teaching staff, we should find ways to include all students in classes, no matter their disabilities or differences.
How could higher education include all groups of students?
Attention should be paid to “unconscious bias” amongst all staff members. As humans, each one of us tends to believe that we are fairer than the average person. However, this is not always the case. Research has proven differently. Unconscious bias is when we reach a judgment based on our prior experience or our own deep-seated thought patterns, assumptions, or interpretations -and we’re not aware of doing it (The Royal Society, 2015). Our unconscious biases will be reflected in the auditorium, our contact time with students outside of class, and our capacity to fairly evaluate all students (The Royal Society, 2015).
We should also pay attention to the students’ different learning styles According to previous research studies, the notion that all students learn the same way is incorrect, yet teaching staff tend to stick to what they know and what they have always done (Moser & Wilson, 2023). The wrong teaching style makes it very difficult for a student to succeed in a subject. There are many models out there such as the VARK model that could be used to determine the learning style of the student. Other methods that could be used to create inclusiveness in higher education are by designing inclusive curriculums, including inclusive assessment practices, or committing to a digital strategy in which technology enables inclusive learning. To ensure an inclusive approach that will work, universities should first establish what the quality of understanding is regarding technology amongst teaching staff and how well they can integrate the latest technology..
We should also take care of the well-being of students as it contributes to inclusive learning . This could be achieved by developing a well-being center, followed by developing active learning skills, improving the understanding of diversity, and increasing awareness of stereotypes. If you are not practicing inclusive learning currently, just start somewhere. Let’s join hands and make the world a better place.
