Assessing Performance in Interdisciplinary Higher Education: Lessons and Issues From the United Kingdom

• In Event: Assessing Competence in Professional Performance Across Disciplines and Professions

Abstract

In the United Kingdom the design and process of university assessment, particularly at the undergraduate level, has come under intense public scrutiny following the implementation of policy aimed at improving educational standards. The introduction of student fees and national satisfaction surveys has promoted competition between institutions for student numbers with ‘assessment and feedback’ being considered a key indicator of student engagement and overall satisfaction with their HE experience. This has put assessment at the center of learning and teaching strategies and innovation.
Performance assessment in professional education, particularly in medicine and nursing, is primarily focused on ensuring fitness to practice and has more well defined performance outcomes than more traditional science and social science disciplines. Healthcare students are required to keep a portfolio of knowledge and skills supported with competence assessments. Other disciplines in higher education are now required to keep student portfolios of transferable skills as part of demonstrating ‘employability’.
Undertaking formative feedback on student performance, particularly in the work place, is becoming more challenging. Increasingly in the multi-disciplinary and high service demand environments of the National Health Service, clinical care priorities leave little time for educational activities. In response, professions educators are reconceptualising forms of feedback and assessment in these contexts. For example, Merry, Price, Carless, and Taras (2013) have developed new strategies for providing feedback, based on dialogue with students.
In sum, we examine ways in which assessment strategies and methods need to evolve in clinical and higher education to respond to policy, professional body and student expectations, and the implications of this for faculty development in both institutional and work based contexts. Drawing upon national and institutional data, we have identified key assessment issues, notably the importance and challenge of receiving timely and purposeful feedback. We also offer suggestions for strategic and innovative solutions, for example, advantages of creating curriculum as opportunities for student learning, but viewing curriculum as a set of system-wide development processes.

Authors

• Mark Russell, King's College London

• Anne Christine McKee, King's College London

• Michele Russell-Westhead, King's College London