Collaboration on Assessment Criteria and Standards Schemes
Introduction
The design and use of Criteria and Standards Schemes (CSS) to support descriptions of tasks or assignments is part of a movement in education that recognises assessment as an integral part of the learning process. The quality of CSS play a vital role in supporting students in their learning through assessment. The links to the documents on the website of the Queensland Studies Authority (QSA), below, are designed for secondary and primary school teachers but are relevant to teachers working at all levels. Each provides a short summary of the underlying principles of assessment for learning and also provides useful references to other sources of information about assessment using criteria and standards.
What students in the CoACSS Project said about Standards and Criteria
The table below has been designed with features of high quality CSS in the left hand column and comments on the expectations and use of CSS made by students who participated in the ACU CoACSS project in the right hand column. Features of quality CSS have been drawn from the University of Tasmania webpage on Assessment. Student's comments were selected from interview data where students were asked to comment on Assessment Task Descriptors (ATD) and CSS they had made use of during previous assessment tasks. These comments provide insight into the difficulties students' have with the interpretation and use of ADT and CSS.
Queensland Studies Authority Assessment for Learning Resources [pdf - 180 KB]
Queensland Studies Authority Feedback Theory Resources [pdf - 106 KB]
Features of Criteria and Standards Schemes (CSS)
Criteria are about the evidence a student must produce to satisfy the requirement of obtaining a learning outcome.
Evidence can be about process, product or both.
Qualifiers saying how well the task should be done are not included as these are standards rather than criteria.
What the CoACSS Project students said
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"Once I have written my essay or assignment I go back and make sure I have actually met each of the criteria."Student, M. Teach
Interview 1 -
"You read them once and then after that they sort of fall to the bottom."Student, GDES
Interview 1 -
"I usually only read the criteria sheet after I've done the assignment."Student, B. Ed
Interview 1
Interpretative commentary
Students value well written CSS and use them in their planning
Some students do not know how to make use of CSS.
Outcomes specific criteria are more difficult for students to relate to the task.
See outcome specific versus task specific to look at a table comparing the two types of criteria.
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"But you know what I really love? Is when they tell you what they want and then you go to the [Rubric] and they don't match up."Student, M. Teach
Interview 1 -
"This semester we had something on our criteria sheet that wasn't on the task sheet at all."Student, GDES
Interview 1 -
"There's nothing worse than a lecturer saying this is what I want to see and you should have this. I want to see this, I want to see you do this, work on this but you've got to put it with the criteria sheet as well and the criteria sheet won't let you do any of those things."Student, B. Ed
Interview 1 -
"I would like to know that the lecturer has actually revised the criteria that year for that assignment because often I feel that they'd just cut and paste their last year's criteria even if they'd changed the assignment slightly."Student, B. Ed
Interview 1
In some cases the student comment may be related to the fact that the lecturer has used outcomes specific criteria rather than task specific criteria. Undergraduate students will respond best to task specific criteria.
However, explaining which parts of the task are related to which criteria will assist if outcomes specific criteria are used.
Task-specific criteria are developed from the learning outcomes to be specific for each task and provide more information about the qualities you are looking for. Using task specific criteria will help students to more easily understand what is required and show that the task and criteria sheet are explicitly linked.
This PowerPoint presentation will assist you to write standards containing task specific information.
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"You know how you have in the outline what you need to do for each assignment and it gives you a brief outline and then when you went to the criteria sheet, those elements were all included in the criteria and then it gave you more information in each of the boxes (standards)."Student, M. Teach
Interview 1 -
"If I have a situation where I have a task sheet that doesn't match a criteria sheet, I just do what the criteria sheet says because at the end of the day that's what you're getting marked on."Student, B. Ed
Interview 1 -
"Once I have written my essay or assignment I go back and make sure I have actually met each of the criteria."Student, M. Teach
Interview 1
The student comments here indicate the importance students place on well written criteria that match the task descriptor.
Standards are concise verbal descriptors of the level to which a student has satisfied each criterion.
Standards can be written so that the middle of each standard is described - that is, the typical A, the typical C not the minimum of each range. They can also be written so that they describe the minimum required for each standard.
Standards should use words which are descriptive and comparative not just comparative. The University of Tasmania word bank for standards is a valuable resource.
Standards should be based around positive statements about student achievement and should avoid the use of language that is not positive. Refer to positive approaches to standard writing to see examples.
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"Using language that is indicative of what is expected but at the same time doesn't tell people exactly what to do because then that doesn't leave opportunity for people to show initiative and originality, you know, because this business is not a tick the box business, it's about people being able to use their imagination, skills, initiative and originality. You have got to try and capture that as well."Lecturer, GDES
Interview 1 -
"I guess there are very general things, for example, like a good coverage or a very good coverage, obviously the lecturer is going to know what that is beforehand but we don't really get an indication of what that is."GDES
Interview 1
Students understand that standards descriptors cannot give every detail of what is expected.
In this case the description of what "coverage" means was not included.
Standards use language that students should be able to understand.
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"And you wouldn't have to keep double-questioning the lecturer either, annoying them probably with the same question over and over. Just to make sure that we've got it the way they like it."Student, M. Teach
Interview 1 -
"It's kind of just like criteria speak and it's just in there and then it is kind of just left and you can go and look at it and you think you understand what it means and you are like okay but then it actually is pointing to something else"Student, GDES
Interview 1
Avoid jargon when writing standards descriptors.
Students want to know why a particular level or standard was chosen for their work.
Why is it an example of satisfactory achievement rather than high achievement of that criterion? Even when positive standards descriptors are used students need to know what was missing or incorrect in order to improve.
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"They'd say what you did right and correct. They wouldn't say where you'd lost the marks which are what we're after so that we don't make the same mistake again."Student, B. Ed
Interview 1 -
"Some lecturers take it as a personal attack if you try to approach them about assignment criteria. It's very off putting."Student, B. Ed
Interview 1
Feedback is more than just returning a CSS. Students need to know who to improve for the next assessment piece.