posted on 2016-06-07, 11:24authored byPaola Iannone, Adrian Simpson
This paper explores the views of a group of students who took an oral performance assessment in a first year mathematics module. Such assessments are unusual for most subjects in the UK, but particularly within the generally homogenous assessment diet of undergraduate mathematics. The evidence presented here resonates with some, but not all, of the existing literature on oral assessment and suggests that, despite concerns about anxiety and fairness, students see oral assessments as encouraging a focus on understanding, being relatively authentic and reactive to their needs. We argue that, suitably implemented, oral assessment may be a viable assessment method for straddling the ‘assessment for’ and ‘assessment of’ learning divide in higher education.
Funding
This work was supported by the MSOR Network in the UK through the Mathematical Sciences HE Curriculum Innovation Project, part of the National HE STEM Programme.
History
School
Science
Department
Mathematics Education Centre
Published in
Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education
Volume
40
Issue
7
Pages
971 - 987
Citation
IANNONE, P. and SIMPSON, A., 2015. Students’ views of oral performance assessment in mathematics: straddling the ‘assessment of’ and ‘assessment for’ learning divide. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 40(7), pp. 971-987.
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Publication date
2015
Notes
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education on 22nd Sept 2014, available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2014.961124