Postgraduate Taught Courses: Assessment

The University’s educational philosophy is that students should acquire a range of critical skills in testing and judging evidence or propositions as well as a sufficient grounding in a particular discipline. Courses are designed to foster independent work and thought, and students learn how to think rather than being  taught what to think. Accordingly, examinations should seek to assess the identified range of skills, knowledge and understanding identified in the learning outcomes for the course. The diversified approach to teaching and learning also means that candidates in the same examination might not have been taught exactly the same knowledge of the subject.

Education Committee regards the nature and pattern of assessment to be a matter for the academic judgement of those responsible for designing and delivering courses, who will be best placed to relate the  desired pattern and type of assessment to the intended learning outcomes of the course concerned. The Committee endorses the position that a range of assessment and examining practices may operate across  the University, within the University’s Examination Regulations and policy framework, and subject to approval by Education Committee and by the relevant division.

Overall, assessment practices should:

• Promote the academic coherence of planned programmes of study. In designing courses it should be borne in mind that the mode of assessment, and the range of subject knowledge assessed, have a significant impact on students’ learning and therefore their understanding of their subject
• Encourage students to develop higher order intellectual skills as they progress through their programme of study. Assessment practices should therefore focus on synthesis, critical evaluation and the application of knowledge to unfamiliar problems, and should avoid reliance on testing of factual recall
• Promote the integration of different strands and topics within the subject of study. The process of revision for formal examinations encourages students to integrate separate  elements of knowledge and promotes a deeper understanding of underlying disciplinary issues. These benefits may, however, be lost if students are subject to excessive assessment or assessment focussed on factual recall
• Test students’ ability to meet multiple academic demands, manage their time and prioritise their activities
• Allow tutors and students freedom to explore the subject and take intellectual risks free of excessive pressure of assessment

The Oxford Learning Institute is able to provide advice on course design and development, including assessment.

Postgraduate taught courses may make use of a range of examination and assessment methods according to the elements within the subject to be assessed. The assessment or examination norm for a Master’s level course which is completed within a year is traditionally the equivalent of two or three three-hour examination papers and a dissertation or thesis of 10,000 – 20,000 words. However, there are many imaginative ways in which postgraduate taught courses have designed their assessment to equate with this basic benchmark.

Approved forms of assessment include:

• Timed, written examination papers–usually three hours, although this varies in some subjects.
• Timed, computer-based examinations.
• Dissertation/thesis/report of a research project–this constitutes an extended piece of writing of substantial length relating to a piece of supervised research.
• Extended essays–usually of several thousand words based on a particular topic or question.
• Oral examination–may be a compulsory element of an examination usually focused on a piece of research, or may be used to confirm a student’s result(s) in borderline cases.
• Take-away papers–the amount of time available to students will be much more restricted compared to that available for an extended essay.
• Practical or fieldwork requirement
• Portfolio–a submission involving a selection of pieces of work.
• Oral presentations–usually associated with a piece of supervised research.
• Poster presentation
• Group work–this involves students collaborating formally to produce a piece of assessed work together, such as a presentation (which may be delivered orally or as a poster) or project output.
• A mock research grant application.

The University attaches great importance to both the rigour and the fairness of its public examinations. The Policy and Guidance for Examiners and Others Involved in University Examinations sets out Education Committee’s expectations for the design and conduct of examinations.

Departments should keep the nature and methods of assessment for each course under review, taking into account student feedback. In reviewing the assessment procedures used throughout the University or  any unit or sub-unit of the University, departments should pay attention to:

• the extent to which the assessment methods used:
  • remain a valid, fair and reliable means of assessing student achievement
  • provide appropriate evidence of the academic standards of the course being met by the majority of candidates
  • are appropriate to the teaching methods employed and the intended learning outcomes of the course
• any evidence that the amount of assessment or its timing is having a detrimental impact on the work of candidates
• the evidence of the teaching quality and methods as revealed through the examination process and the reports of examiners
   

Oxford maintains as a principle that those who examine students should be, as far as possible, independent of those who directly teach them. This principle is reflected in the arrangements for the appointment of the examination board which takes its instructions from, but is independent of, the supervisory body for the course. The principle is also reflected in other regulations and policies that seek to ensure, as far as possible, an independence of judgement by the examination board, not unduly influenced by close knowledge of students’ performance in class. However, there are a number of circumstances in which a supervisory body for a course might consider it necessary to appoint a student’s supervisor as one of the markers of their dissertation; for example, where there is difficulty finding sufficient specialists in a particular topic within a small department. If a department does elect to appoint the supervisor as one of the assessors of the dissertation, the following steps should be taken:

1. The supervisor should always be formally appointed as an assessor if not already an examiner.
2. The second marker should either be an examiner on the Board of Examiners or an assessor with the closest specialist knowledge to the project topic.
3. The two markers should mark the student’s dissertation independently of each other, i.e. double blind-marking.
4. As for all types of assessment, the Examination Conventions should explicitly state how marks are reconciled when there is a significant difference between the mark of the supervisor and examiner/assessor. In such cases the Chair of Examiners may request an additional assessor or examiner.
5. One of the external examiners should be asked to give particular attention to the marking and reconciliation of marks for dissertations where supervisors are involved in marking.