Co-constructing Criteria - Research Supports Practice!

Co-constructing Criteria - Assessment Research Supports Powerful Classroom Assessment Practices 

Since I co-authored my first assessment book, Together is Better: Collaborative Assessment, Evaluation and Reporting (1992) based on our school-based research, I’ve been writing about the power of co-constructing criteria in support of student learning and achievement.

Now, as I am reading the more than 100 papers submitted as pre-reading by delegates to the International Symposium, I am enjoying the number of papers that provide the research support for high-quality assessment practices such as the deep involvement of students in the assessment process.

One paper in particular, by Andrade(2013), has gathered together the research in support of co-constructing criteria. For example, when students are engaged in examining samples, using work samples, or “co-creating success criteria, and monitoring their own progress through self- and/or peer assessment” they learn more (Andrade, Du, & Mycek, 2010; Andrade, Du, & Wang, 2009; Ross and Starling, 2008).

Andrade(2013) goes on to write, “The quality of the success criteria makes a difference, of course. Citing Moreland and Jones (2000), Brookhart (2007) notes that formative assessment and the instructional decisions based on it can actually thwart the learning process if the success criteria are trivial (e.g., focused on social and managerial issues such as taking turns at the computer) rather than substantive (e.g., focused on procedural and conceptual matters related to learning about computers).”

I’m going to continue reading – as a quick scan forward shows that Andrade is addressing self-assessment, goal setting, feedback, and so on. You can hear Heidi Andradeyourself at Assessment for Learning: Canada in Conversation with the World in Fredericton, April 11 & 12, 2014. You can register here.

References

Andrade, H. (2013). Classroom assessment in the context of learning theory and research. In J. H. McMillan (Ed.), SAGE handbook of research on classroom assessment (pp. 17-34). New York. SAGE.

Andrade, H. (2010). Students as the definitive source of formative assessment: Academic self-assessment and the self-regulation of learning. In H. Andrade & G. Cizek, Handbook of formative assessment. (pp. 90-105). New York: Routledge.

Andrade, H., Du, Y. & Mycek, K. (2010). Rubric-referenced self-assessment and middle school students’ writing. Assessment in Education, 17(2), 199-214.

Andrade, H., Du, Y. & Wang, X. (2009). Putting rubrics to the test: The effect of a model, criteria generation, and rubric-referenced self-assessment on elementary school students’ writing. Educational Measurement: Issues and Practices, 27(2), 3-13.

Andrade, H. G. (2001). The effects of instructional rubrics on learning to write. Current Issues in Education, 4(4). Retrieved from http://cie.ed.asu.edu/volume4/number4

Brookhart, S. (2007). Expanding views about formative classroom assessment: A review of the literature. In J. H. McMillan (Ed.), Formative classroom assessment: Theory into practice. New York: Teachers College Press.

Davies, A, Cameron, C., Politano, C. and Gregory, K. (1992).  Together Is Better: Collaborative Assessment, Evaluation, and Reporting. Winnipeg, MB: Portage and Main Press. 

Gregory, K., Cameron, C. and Davies, A. (1997/2011). Knowing What Counts: Setting and Using Criteria, 2^nd Ed. Courtenay, BC: Connections Publishing.

Gregory, K., Cameron, C. and Davies, A. (2013). Établir et utiliser des critères, 2^nd Ed. Courtenay, BC: Connections Publishing.

Ross, J. A. & Starling, M. (2008). Self-assessment in a technology supported environment: The case of grade 9 geography. Assessment in Education, 15(2), 183-199.

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