Shaking power structures through summative self-assessment: Seminar – 9 April 2019

12 March 2019

Self-assessment in higher education is typically viewed as a formative tool for student learning – but could allowing students to decide their own grade through summative self-assessment change the purpose of assessment from control towards learning? Join the University of Helsinki’s Juuso Nieminen as he discusses shaking the power structures of assessment through summative self-assessment.

Self-assessment has been portrayed as a way to promote the idea of ‘assessment for learning’ in higher education. Most of the previous literature builds on the idea of self-assessment as a formative tool for learning. However, it has also been claimed that students are not truly active participants of assessment if they are not given access to the whole assessment process, involving grading. This kind of self-assessment challenges the usual norms of assessment by questioning the power structures related to assessment in higher education.

In the Digital Self-Assessment (DISA) project at the University of Helsinki, the norms of assessment are shaken through summative self-assessment. We have developed a course model based on formative self- and peer-assessment and supportive feedback. At the end of a DISA course, students decide their own course grade. Can this kind of summative self-assessment truly disrupt the usual power structures by changing the purpose of assessment from control towards learning?

Our results show that summative self-assessment was a way to promote students’ quality and ownership of learning. However, these kinds of results are not only tied to any assessment practice but to the pedagogical purposes behind these practices and to the educational context of the study. The results support the idea of ‘change assessment, change learning’, which underlines the importance of understanding power in assessment.

Places for the seminar are filling quickly, so register now!