Theme 7 Promoting Holistic Assessment Practice through Policy

Tapping into the rubric policy in the institution where this research was conducted, this theme illustrates how the educator and management participants interpret such policy and implication for practice. Interestingly, most participants regard the policy as “helpful” because it increases

awareness of rubrics within the university. Also, they expressed the opinion that a policy is needed if the university wants to adopt good practice,

otherwise, the assessment practice in general becomes scattered and inconsistent.

“…It (policy) is like a reminder, to remind teachers to think about why it is required to do these assessments.” (Ed5)

“In my experience, if you leave it (rubric) as a voluntary choice, I’m not sure that you will get a uniform approach. No, there are very different approaches here, on how to evaluate.” (Ed2)

“It’s necessary to have a policy. There are many disciplines,

staff…there needs to be a coherence…This is good practice…you could not be just like a priest and tell the follower it’s good for you. The effectiveness won’t be there…spreading the central message top down, I think this is the most effective way.” (Ed12M3)

The quotes suggest that having a policy is initially a good and effective way to actualise an initiative uniformly, be it by reminding teachers of their practice or by “forcing” them to adopt a new mindset and approach. Having a good policy initiative is a start; effective execution is equally or more important in this scenario. The educator and management participants mention that despite having good intentions, the execution of this policy is premature and hinders optimal rubric actualisation.

“I think the spirit is good but the execution and the deliverable that came up so far, well, the ones that I’ve seen, they’re terrible…it’s in the execution when they actually use it, then I find it to be terrible…It’s not a holistic approach.” (Ed4)

“If we can set policy that will drive…thinking, the feeling that is the emotion and the acting that is the behaviour of not only our students

but our staff and senior management, that would be awesome…I think we need it (policy) if we use it right.” (Ed7)

These views display an issue of a non-holistic and perhaps not fit-for- purpose policy. It implies that despite this policy, it is unlikely to be achieving its objectives and is therefore unlikely to improve the existing assessment practice. The concern with this non-holistic approach probably points to the fact that rubric is only one element in the concept of Assessment for Learning or within an assessment system. Even with sophisticated design and

implementation of rubrics, the entire assessment practice needs to be aligned from assessment task design to tools in order to facilitate learning. A policy on one element of a major practice only tackles one area, in this case the “what”, but is less likely to change the mindset of emphasising the role of learning in the assessment system, the “why” as this participant states:

“I think the rubric policy, it’s one aspect of it. It’s not the answer. It’s not the cure because it doesn’t address those other things that I’ve been talking about – assessment type, assessment mix, the programme, across the programme, and who’s looking at the rubrics

holistically…Someone will tick a box to say they have a rubric. Nobody will necessarily look at the quality of that rubric, the application, the validity, whatever…A lot of it will boil down to a box being ticked.” (Ed14M5)

Altogether, the participants interpret that although this top-down rubric policy is good for raising attention, it is far from helping to improve the current practice because its execution is poor. It implies that rubric practice is still

premature and there is definitely a place to refine the existing policy in order to reach the ultimate goal of promoting Assessment for Learning. If the policy is better-rounded, the barriers of actualisation are likely be minimised.

7.5 Summary of the Chapter

This chapter presents the findings related to the participants’ views and experiences of rubric actualisation under the top-down rubric policy in this university. In the same way that they perceive assessment, the participants relate rubrics to evaluation and grading. However, they identify elements in rubrics that facilitate or could promote learning. Nonetheless, the barriers with optimal rubric actualisation are significant and span various domains,

including barriers or tensions from other individuals, the nature of rubrics, time and knowledge limitations in development, the value the university places on research as well as insufficient support by the university. The optimal picture of rubric actualisation relates to the learning function, i.e. learning how to use rubrics from teachers, increasing the flexibility of rubrics and increasing knowledge to reinvent rubrics. The management group plays a role in facilitating this process.

The educator and management participants concur that this policy serves to raise the awareness of rubrics in general within the university. However, changes in practice are too premature to comment on because the policy is failed by multiple execution issues. These include the policy itself not being holistic and not fit-for-purpose. All in all, the findings provide insights on

policy refinement and future assessment policy initiatives. The next chapter explains the findings in detail with comparisons to current literature in the field.

Chapter 8: A Discussion on the Challenges and Potential of