Assessing Learning Quality: reconciling institutional,staff and educational demands

Two major frameworks for educational decision making, including decisions on assessment, can be distinguished: quantitative, whichis adequate for construing some kinds of learning; and qualitative, which should be the appropriate framework for enabling decisions flowing from most tertiary educational aims. However, for various reasons, institutions implicitly encourage a quantitative framework for assessment‐related decision making, particularly evident in the recent emphasis on accountability and performance indicators. This is unfortunate because, through the backwash effect, quantitative modes of assessment encourage surface approaches to learning, which typically lead to low cognitive‐level outcomes that are not compatible with stated course objectives. It is argued that an institution and its educational practices comprise a system in equilibrium, and that if educational goals are to be realised, the whole system needs to be compatible with those aims.