Table Of ContentIpsative Assessment
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Ipsative Assessment
Motivation through Marking Progress
Gwyneth Hughes
Institute of Education, University of London, UK
© Gwyneth Hughes 2014
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014 978-1-137-26721-4
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Contents
List of Figures and Tables vi
Acknowledgements vii
1 A Fresh Look at Assessment 1
Part I The Effects of Competition on Assessment:
Making a Case for Ipsative Assessment
2 The Purposes of Assessment: Competition and
Social Selection 15
3 Assessment for Learning: In the Shadows? 33
4 The Effects of Competition on Assessment
for Learning 53
5 Exploring Ipsative Assessment 71
6 Making the Case for Ipsative Assessment:
Assessment for Learning Revisited 92
Part II Ipsative Assessment in Practice: Challenges and V isions
7 Two Case Studies of Ipsative Assessment in
Academic Settings 113
8 A Dual Systems Model of Assessment: Lessons
from Doctoral Supervision 139
9 Leading Innovation and Change in Educational Settings:
The Challenges of Assessment Reform 162
10 Institutional Case Study of Innovation in Assessment 180
11 Ipsative Assessment As a Feasible Utopia 200
Appendix 1: Feedback analysis tool 211
Appendix 2: Feedback profiles before and after introducing
ipsative assessment 212
References 213
Subject Index 224
v
List of Figures and Tables
Figures
5.1 Linear representation of measurement of learning
for five students with competitive assessment 74
5.2 Linear representation of progress for the same
five students with ipsative assessment 74
5.3 Feed forward for three (or more) sequential
assessments (adapted from Hughes, 2011) 81
5.4 Ipsative cumulative scheme for three (or more)
sequential assessments (adapted from Hughes, 2011) 82
7.1 Ipsative assessment scheme for a distance-learning
Masters course (adapted from Hughes, 2011) 119
Tables
5.1 Summary of approaches to ipsative assessment 91
8.1 A dual systems scheme combining ipsative
and competitive assessment 152
vi
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my research project funders the Centre for
Distance Education, London University, and the Joint Information
Systems Committee. I would also like to thank Wendy Smith, Dr Celia
Whitchurch and Professor David Nicol for their encouragement and
support for the idea of ipsative assessment, and also thanks to all those
colleagues who have worked with me on the various research projects
mentioned in the book.
vii
1
A Fresh Look at Assessment
Most of the time, most people will not achieve perfection or excellence,
but most people can make improvements most of the time. This sim-
ple statement will form the basis for the book and in this introductory
chapter I will begin to explore why I think a fresh look at assessment is
long overdue.
Addressing the problem of assessment
Assessment seems to be a troubling and treacherous process for all
involved: learners complain about unfairness and poor feedback and
many find the process stressful, while many assessors and managers
worry about maintaining standards and motivating learners. Although
teachers may appreciate that assessment can empower learners, design-
ing assessments, marking and giving feedback are often perceived as a
chore. This book argues that the root of the problem is that assessment
is highly competitive and students are constantly comparing them-
selves to often unachievable standards, while assessment should really
be about learning and progressing.
To illustrate the damage that competition can cause and to begin
a fresh look at assessment, I would like to present a short anecdote.
I play in an amateur string quartet with three others who have had
similar educational backgrounds to me. We gathered one evening to
view a video recording of our recent concert. My three fellow string
players’ viewing of the video was accompanied by volumes of criticism
and cries of dismay at their perceived inadequacy of our performance.
One player even suggested that perhaps we should give up playing alto-
gether. I pointed out that they were comparing our performance to that
of p rofessional musicians and that such comparison is not helpful – we
1
2 Ipsative Assessment
were not aiming to compete with other quartets. I reminded them that
when we first started playing together two years ago we played as four
separate voices and not as an ensemble, but the video recording dem-
onstrated that we were now listening to each other and so there was
evidence of how much we had improved. We would not have been able
to give a credible concert performance at all two years ago and this per-
formance was our personal best. Switching from a judgement based on a
competitive standard to an assessment of our progress enabled us to feel
much more proud of our performance and continue playing together,
rather than disband. This incident demonstrated to me very starkly the
pernicious effect of learning framed by competitive external standards
that has so dominated all of our learning lives and how a simple switch
to a focus on progress can have huge benefits without requiring any
extra work.
Few would dispute that students can benefit from assessment and
feedback and that assessment can also be harmful, but despite decades
of initiatives to provide learners with better assessment, for example,
coursework instead of examinations, alongside the release of resources
for making assessment more reliable and fair, the problems with assess-
ment persist. In response to the concerns about assessment there have
been numerous books analysing practice and research providing us with
insight into the learner and teacher perspectives. A movement that
started in the school sector has grown up around viewing assessment
as being for learning rather than only assessment of learning (Black &
Wiliam, 2003, 2009). If students are to learn from assessment then they
need both meaningful opportunities to demonstrate what they have
learnt and feedback that they can use. But, students repeatedly report
that feedback is not helpful and not understood (Boud & Molloy, 2013;
Handley et al., 2008; Walker, 2009). There are some enduring myths
about feedback: firstly, that feedback is a one-way process of imparting
information on performance from an expert to novice, and secondly,
that there is a single ‘best practice’ model of feedback that applies to
all learners in all situations. These myths are now being challenged
(Boud & Molloy, 2013; Nicol & Macfarlane-Dick, 2006; Carless et al.,
2011; Crisp, 2007). But, while there are undoubtedly pockets of excel-
lent practice and broad agreement that assessment has improved over
the past few decades, there remains unease about assessment and some
fundamental disagreements over its purpose and practice.
Recent educational contexts do not inspire optimism over continued
change for the better and may even herald regression to the kind of mass
testing that has been largely discredited. Post-compulsory education in
