Quality and standards

Australia benefits greatly from a national and international reputation for high academic standards and high quality universities, courses and graduates. When questions are raised about academic standards they are often associated with assessment practices, in particular student grading. Of course, the assurance of academic standards embraces a wide range of university activities beyond the assessment of student learning. However, assessment and grading practices are perhaps the most important safeguard. The role of assessment in assuring academic standards is likely to be further highlighted as university entry pathways and the modes of student participation and engagement with learning resources diversify: the maintenance of standards through entry pre-requisites and ‘time spent on task’ are far less relevant mechanisms for ensuring standards than they once were. The measurement and reporting of student outcomes — their knowledge, skills, achievement or performance — is now a major reference point for academic standards.

Australian universities have considerable independence in exercising their responsibility for academic standards. As self-accrediting institutions, they have autonomy over course content, course delivery, assessment, grading and the graduation of students. Unlike international higher education systems, there are seldom external assessment requirements, and curricula are rarely determined externally. In these circumstances, it is essential for universities to have robust internal quality assurance for assessment and grading.

The experience of academic staff directly involved in teaching and assessing student learning is also central to determining and monitoring standards. Ultimately, individual academic staff and their academic judgement define and protect standards through the ways in which they assess and grade the students they teach.

What can individual academics do about standards?

Ensure …	With the objective of …
… there are explicit learning outcomes, clear criteria and, where possible, statements of the various levels of achievement.	Students and staff both being aware of what is expected, what is valued, and what will be rewarded.
… a close match between the assessment tasks — in particular, the knowledge and skills these tasks are capable of determining — and the intended learning outcomes.	Creating assessment tasks that validly and reliably determine the valued learning outcomes.
… the grades awarded (and other information provided to students on their achievement) make a direct link between the intended learning outcomes and students’ actual performance on assessment tasks.	Awarding grades that are meaningful representations of the level of learning.
… assessment tasks are capable of detecting the higher-order learning outcomes that characterise higher education.	Developing higher education assessment that determines and reports the highest intellectual skills and accomplishments.
… there is ongoing dialogue on learning outcomes, assessment and grading with people teaching in the same discipline area in other universities.	Using assessment and grading practices that are informed by the norms and values of the discipline community.

Explicit criteria for learning outcomes and explicit levels of achievement are fundamental starting points. Without these it is not possible to talk meaningfully about standards. Australian universities generally have well-developed statements of expected learning outcomes. Arguably, expected levels of achievement are less well articulated. As a consequence, grading is often strongly ‘norm-referenced’ — students are graded according to the ranking of their performance among peers.

Generally, it is best to try to minimise the subjectivity (and thus the opaqueness from the student perspective) in assessment and grading. Having said this, it is wise to be wary of excessive claims of objectivity in higher education assessment. The higher order intellectual skills of higher education do not easily lend themselves to tick-the-box checklists. A degree of subjectivity is inevitable. But this subjectivity must be informed by experienced professional judgement and communicated to students with transparency.

Sound processes for defining and monitoring academic standards will directly support the quality of teaching and learning by making the goals and standards clearer — students who understand goals and standards and who are encouraged to study towards them are likely to have better learning outcomes. Any steps that might be taken to make the expected learning outcomes more explicit will support and enhance procedures for credit transfer and the recognition of student learning across courses, while also underpinning greater student independence within flexible and self-paced learning environments.

The grading loop

1. Explicit learning outcomes, criteria, levels of achievement		2. Assessment tasks or requirements matched to intended learning outcomes
	3. Determination and reporting of level of achievement or performance on intended learning outcomes