Towards achieving good assessment practice : a case study

The University of Tasmania (UTAS) is currently undertaking a major review of assessment as it moves towards implementation of standard-based criterion referenced assessment. A review was undertaken of the third year design unit taught by the School of Engineering. This review revealed that the existing unit outline did not adequately define the assessment tasks and that the assessment criteria in the existing unit outline were not comprehensive enough to provide a guideline as to what was expected at each performance standard. This paper describes a project undertaken to design and develop a study guide in which assessment in the design unit are more clearly defined. The foundational work for the study guide was the development of learning activities and assessment tasks that were aligned to the learning objectives.