Assessment, marking and feedback
It is important to be able to provide feedback on student’s work, under the guidance of the module leader.
University assessment
Assessments are meant to:
- test a student’s knowledge and understanding of a subject while providing an incentive to study
- certificate their achievements and differentiate between different levels of acquired knowledge
- provide a quality assurance tool to external entities to evaluate the quality of the teaching and learning process
Assessments can be:
- formative: they are meant to provide feedback to the student. They are not graded and do not count towards the final mark
- summative: they are meant to provide a final mark to the student. They are graded and count towards the final mark
Assessment and feedback
Assessments should be designed with the following goals in mind:
- validity: the assessment should verify the learning outcomes of the module
- reliability: a student retaking the assessment should get a very similar mark
- practicality: the assessment should be feasible in terms of time and resources required
- fairness: all students must have been provided with all the necessary information to complete the assessment in a timely manner
- usefulness: the assessment must contribute to the student’s learning process
Marking criteria
| Mark | Class | Criteria |
|---|---|---|
| 70-100 | 1st class | Excellent work, showing deep understanding of the subject. The student is able to perform a critical analysis and apply the knowledge they have acquired in unseen before contexts. Assignments will be well-structured and well-referenced. |
| 60-69 | 2nd class - 1st division | Solid understanding of the subject, with breadth of knowledge but not depth or viceversa. Some critical analysis is observed. The work submitted will be related to the subject but will rely a lot on the course’s material and contain a few errors or omissions. |
| 50-59 | 2nd class - 2nd division | The student shows a wide but superficial knowledge of the subject. Very limited critical analysis. The work presented will be sufficient, but heavily based on the course material and may contain errors and omissions. |
| 40-49 | Pass | The student shows a limited knowledge of the subject. The work presented will be sufficient, but heavily based on the course material and may contain errors rooted in the partial knowledge acquired. |
| 0-39 | Fail | Insufficient knowledge on the subject. Most of the work presented is either sketchy or irrelevant due a very superficial view of the module’s content. |
Marking in your school
While the University employs a common marking scheme, each school may add some slight variations to it. Late submissions are to be marked as usual and if adjustments are needed these are applied after marking by your School.
As well as assigning a mark, you should provide feedback to the student, to help them improve their work and guide them in order to fill the gaps in their knowledge. Hence, when marking it is important to always keep in mind the learning outcomes of the module, the purpose of the assessment and make sure all markers interpret the criteria in the same way.
Try a marking scheme on a small subset of students and ask the module leader whether the marking is consistent with their expectations.
How to give good feedback
Some tips on how to give good feedback:
- Make a holistic decision on where the work fits in the assessment criteria/rubric, without focusing on the details at first.
- Feedback should be
- Concise
- Constructive
- Specific
- Honest and coherent
- The feedback should be about the student’s work, not about the student themselves.
Helping students to engage with feedback
Once the student has received the feedback, it is poignant to make sure they understand it and are able to act on it. It should help them understand their current level, what is missing in term of what is expected and how to improve.
Practical Tips for Marking
| Suggestion | Description |
|---|---|
| Be realistic about what you can do. | Break your marking work into manageable portions |
| Decide how to tackle the load | You may prefer to mark a whole script at a time, or just Question 1 of every script first. |
| Avoid halo effects | Avoid unfairness after reading a brilliant answer. |
| Watch out for prejudice | Be aware of your own prejudices against the style of the students work, provided it is not important for the evaluation. |
| Mood changes | Make sure you are in the right mood to mark. |
Sometimes can be useful to work in a team, to share the load and get a second opinion on the results, especially when it is close to a grade boundary.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism at Newcastle University is defined as “the use of the work of others without acknowledgement” and is knowing or unknowingly stealing someone else’s work. This includes words, computer code, images, ideas and graphs.
If you suspect plagiarism, you should report it to the module leader, who will then investigate the case and decide whether to escalate it to the University. Under no circumstances should you confront the student directly. The tool used to detect plagiarism is Turnitin.