Backwards Assessment Explanations: Implications for Teaching and Assessment Practice

Abstract

A common approach in assessing student achievement is to advise students before the event of the criteria that will be used in judging their levels of performance. There are strong grounds for being wary about that approach. The main reason is the impossibility of accurately anticipating all the criteria that will turn out to be important in arriving at a sound judgment before actually scrutinising individual student works, which are all more or less different from one another. If, instead, a judgment is made first, taking on board whatever aspects of the work or performance seem to be relevant to the judgment being made, the intellectual processes involved in scrutinising the work are radically changed. Not only that, but the explanations for the judgments will not only differ from one another but also be more tailored to each student work or performance. If students can themselves be inducted into this type of thinking and practice, they will become better able to monitor the quality of their own work while it is under preparation and production.

This chapter is based on a Keynote Address to the Assessment in Music Conference held at the Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University, Brisbane on Tuesday 16 July 2013.