News & Updates

AEQ 4.0

The TESTA team have been devising AEQ 4.0 to reflect findings and new theories in the literature about assessment and feedback developed over the last ten years. We have redefined seven constructs, subjected the constructs and items to expert scrutiny, and developed a survey which needs to be 'road-tested' statistically. AEQ 4.0 is online for final years to fill in, and incentivised with 10 x £50 gift vouchers. If you are a student or know students who would fill it in, please could you pass on the link: https://winchester.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/aeq-40

TESTA Masterclass

The fifth international Assessment in Higher Education Conference http://aheconference.com to be held in Birmingham on 24th and 25th June 2015 features a TESTA Masterclass run by Dr Tansy Jessop. The programme includes other masterclasses run by Professor David Boud, leader of Australian Higher Education's Assessment 2020 Strategy; Professor Margaret Pryce, leader of the ASKe Pedagogic Research Centre at Oxford Brookes; and Professor David Carless from Hong Kong University. The proposal deadline for papers is January 5th 2015. The conference is organised by Professor Sue Bloxham from the University of Cumbria, which is a leader in the field of Assessment for Learning.

TESTA in Durban

Professor Thengani Ngwenya, Director of the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT), at Durban University of Technology (DUT) invited TESTA Project Leader Dr Tansy Jessop to lead a workshop and give a keynote on Assessment for Learning at their Annual Learning Teaching and Assessment Symposium on the 8th and 9th October. DUT is a large new university in South Africa with 26,000 students, more than 2,000 staff, five campuses and six faculties. CELT oversees the enhancement of teaching, learning and assessment and is in the process of implementing a new policy on Assessment for Learning. The AFL workshops drew on programme-wide and contextual understandings from TESTA to tease out assessment principles and explore challenges and issues at DUT from an evidence-led perspective.  Thanks to the organisers, colleagues at CELT and at DUT for a brilliant couple of days. Link to the keynote: http://www.slideshare.net/Tansy1962/myths-dut-keynote Link to one of the workshop sessions http://www.slideshare.net/Tansy1962/assessment-for-learning-40139531

TESTA@Greenwich

The University of Greenwich has recently successfully completed their TESTA@Greenwich pilot. The TESTA team worked with five programmes: Education Studies, Childhood Studies, Forensic Science, Media and Communications and History. The experience was described as positive, painless and valuable for programme review process. TESTA@Greenwich also involved five Students as Change Agents (SCA) from undergraduate and MA courses who helped with aspects of the research process as well as participated in production of student facing resources. It was recognised that TESTA has a potential to raise institutional awareness and be a trigger for change of pedagogical practice. Throughout the duration of the pilot over 33% of students on the programmes actively participated in the process, there were over 1000 view blogs as well as over 250 YouTube views, which demonstrates the impact of the pilot. With changes made to the initial design to fit the Greenwich context, the intention is to use TESTA as a mechanism for change in feedback and assessment practices across the university through embedding it into the review process. Support will be provided in terms of data collection, analysis and training (for both staff and future SCA) but also with implementing agreed changes, hence leading to possible curriculum co-design projects. Additionally the data from the TESTA programmes will feed into the development of the Assessment Hub and the creation of gallery of good practice.

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