Educators know that assessment and feedback practices are among the most effective levers for improving student learning in higher education (HE). Amidst current uncertainty through a variety of disruptors and with the shifting pedagogic landscape in global HE there is a pressing need to consider how we can better use the significant resources devoted to assessment to support students’ learning, academic staff development, and to improve assessment’s fitness for purpose in general.
Impacts of higher education assessment and feedback policy and practice on students: a review of the literature 2016-2021 is a systematic literature review by Edd Pitt and Kathleen M Quinlan from the Centre for the Study of Higher Education at the University of Kent which provides a timely update that will influence the Advance HE transforming assessment in higher education framework.
Focusing on evidence-based policy and practice that has a demonstrable impact on student outcomes from the period 2016 – 2021, the review identified 481 relevant empirical research articles, from 71 different countries and six continents, in the areas of assessment (n=216), feedback practices (n=201), and peer assessment/peer feedback (n=64). This context provides an opportunity for researchers to tend to a much wider range of literature that has been published in different locations, highlighting a variety of research areas and addressing a more globalised understanding of assessment and feedback.
