Dr Elaine Walsh presented at Assessment in Higher Education conference

Dr Elaine Walsh presented at Assessment in Higher Education conference. The purpose of this presentation was to report on preliminary findings from ongoing research into the staff experience of designing assignment documentation and communicating assessment requirements (e.g., assignment briefs).

The research is being conducted at the University of Limerick (by Dr Elaine Walsh) and Buckinghamshire New University (by John Knight), involving focus groups with academic staff. The aim of the research is to inform institutional approaches to supporting colleagues in this aspect of the assessment cycle. Recent research suggests that students often face difficulties and heightened levels of anxiety when interpreting assignment briefs (Walsh, 2021; Knight and Walsh, 2023). However, the staff experience of developing briefs remains opaque.

It is clear, though, that staff also face challenges. Their knowledge of rhetorical forms and practices within their disciplines may be largely tacit and underexplored (McGrath, Negretti and Nicholls, 2019). They may also fall back on established, unquestioned approaches within their disciplines (Hughes, 2009). Issues may be further compounded by the limited time available to attend to assignment design as well as perceptions about what is expected and permitted within their institutional context (Fernández Ruiz et al., 2022).

The key preliminary findings indicate that it is challenging to create effective assignment briefs, it is difficult to gauge how much information to provide (without spoon feeding students), and it is important to aim for consistency in the design and communication of the brief. Academic staff highlighted the usefulness of an assignment brief template and accompanying checklist in helping them to design an effective assignment brief.