Meaningful Resource
Reducing & Removing High Stakes Assessment
Published: 1st September 2023
High-stakes assessment is most often described as one in which a student can fail a course based on their performance in that one piece of assessment, often at the end of a course, and often in an unseen examination scenario, with the potential for this to adversely affect their degree classification. In order to mitigate the risk of one bad performance, there is general consensus across the sector that we should move away from high-stakes assessment.
What is the purpose of this resource?
The purpose of this document is to provide guidance to staff who are (re)designing assessments for the forthcoming academic year, and for future (re)design. It is intended that, whilst we will not address every possible assessment scenario, this document will also provide examples against which it should be possible for you to evaluate the assessment you propose and decide what mitigation you might need, should your assessment fall into the definition of high stakes, and also to clarify what might contribute to our understanding of what is, and what is not, high stakes assessment.
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