8. How should the student's level of attainment be assessed?
Traditionally, the period of residence abroad used not to be assessed in a majority of HEIs because it was not seen as an integral part of the course. The "year out" or "intercalated year" was precisely that: something which interrupted the flow of the degree course and was not part of the prescribed curriculum. Even as recently as 1990, the Council for National Academic Awards' Guidelines on Placement Periods Abroad, which declared "It is essential that four-year language courses […] aim to integrate the period spent abroad into the overall undergraduate curriculum", was recommending no more than that "course schemes should consider incorporating an appropriate credit factor in respect of the range of activities undertaken while abroad." (pp. 2,4)
In its survey of the attitudes towards assessment of twenty-four members of staff in Modern Languages at the University of Ulster, the FDTL project on Effective Practices in Assessment in the Modern Languages reported that some did not like the idea of assessing the year abroad at all because it "spoils the fun". More than half, however, felt there should be a specific assessment task, if only to make the students work systematically: the dissertation was possibly the least unfeasible of the options available, but was none the less felt to be unreliable because of the potential for plagiarism. The mark for it should therefore count for a relatively small part of the assessment. Examinations taken at partner institutions would be preferable but the complexities of establishing equivalences between host and home marking systems made them difficult to adopt.
Interestingly, the views of this small sample seem to reflect to a certain extent the general practice across the sector. The NRAD survey showed that the majority of HEIs claim to assess at least a part of the student's activity while abroad:
A = Not assessed; B = Assessed by host while abroad; C = Assessed by home institution while abroad; D = Assessed on return; E = Combination
| A | B | C | D | E | N/A | |
| 1.Keep journal, log or diary | 14.3% | 1.8% | 8.9% | 14.3% | 1.8% | 58.9% |
| 2.Work [x] hours per week in host company | 17.4% | 26.1% | 4.3% | 1.5% | 8.7% | 42% |
| 3.Work [x] hours per week in school(s) | 20.6% | 19.1% | 0% | 1.5% | 8.8% | 50% |
| 4.Attend prescribed courses for foreigners in local HEI | 11.8% | 44.1% | 0% | 0% | 1.5% | 42.6% |
| 5.Attend prescribed courses for locals in host HEI | 6.4% | 47.6% | 1.6% | 0% | 7.9% | 36.5% |
| 6.Attend courses of their choice in host/local HEI | 15.9% | 37.7% | 0% | 1.5% | 8.7% | 36.2% |
| 7.Assignments in the host HEI | 2.8% | 42.2% | 1.4% | 0% | 11.3% | 42.3% |
| 8.Locally managed joint projects | 2% | 8.2% | 0% | 0% | 2% | 87.8% |
| 9.Assignments for the home institution | 0% | 3.3% | 11.7% | 16.7% | 8.3% | 60% |
| 10.Dissertation in English | 1.7% | 3.3% | 6.7% | 23.3% | 1.7% | 63.3% |
| 11.Dissertation in target language | 0% | 1.7% | 1.7% | 29.3% | 5.2% | 62.1% |
| 12.Research/info gathering for rest of course | 25.8% | 1.5% | 4.5% | 16.7% | 9.1% | 42.4% |
| 13.Reading for the rest of the course | 27.9% | 0% | 0% | 16.2% | 7.4% | 48.5% |
| 14.Language work for the British Institute | 0% | 8.3% | 0% | 4.2% | 0% | 87.5% |
| 15.Project (as described above) | 1.9% | 1.9% | 1.9% | 17.3% | 5.8% | 71.2% |
| 16.Other (as described above) | 1.9% | 1.9% | 1.9% | 11.5% | 0% | 82.8% |
What the figures in fact reveal is that much of the assessment is left to the host workplace or university, in the latter case presumably relying on the internal assessment systems of the host. The principal alternative is the assessment of work undertaken specifically for the home institution, usually a dissertation/project or separate written assignments, and normally assessed after the student's return from abroad. The general pattern has therefore not changed significantly for many years, though the number of courses now requiring students to keep a journal, log or diary is interesting.
It is not surprising that there is a general preference for tried and tested forms of assessment. A given cohort of students is likely to take up a mix of placements, some becoming assistants or going on work-placements, others enrolling at a spread of universities offering different types of course. The difficulty of standardising the assessment of such a range of activities naturally tends to lead the home department to rely on the assessment of written work set by itself and, in a great number of cases, to operate a pass/fail system only.
Therein lies a paradox. As was indicated above, over 86% of departments consider the principal purposes of residence abroad, rated as 'very important' or 'important', to be improved proficiency in the target language, improved insight into the society, institutions and way of life of the country, increased personal maturity and independence and increased employment skills or personal transferable skills. Yet these major strands of learning are rarely subjected to any rigorous form of assessment equivalent to that carried out in the rest of the course.
It is difficult to see that any valid case exists for not assessing the period of residence abroad. If it is an essential element in the student's progress and involves activities that develop her or his knowledge and intellectual and transferable skills, it must be assessed to the same extent as the other essential elements. If linguistic proficiency and intercultural awareness are the key areas in which the students are expected to make progress while abroad and it has been made clear to them with appropriate training how they can take their own learning forward, appropriate methods of assessment need to be devised to measure the progress they have made.
There is evidently a need for some radical rethinking in this area and a development of new practice as significant as the one that has taken place regarding preparation for the period abroad. That need is certainly felt across the sector and the question of assessment and accreditation was flagged by respondents to the NRAD questionnaire as the main issue of concern to them. The process of modularisation that has taken place in most HEIs has undoubtedly brought the question to the head of the agenda and staff in language departments now frequently find themselves arguing the status of the period of residence abroad with modular administrators keen to impose uniformity across the entire spectrum of degree-courses.
| The report of the two LARA sub-projects dealing respectively with Assessment and Accreditation and with Learning Agreements examines the arguments related to assessment of the period abroad, explores various models in operation in HEIs and proposes a learning agreement programme which is student- and process-oriented as well as adaptable for assessment purposes. Click here to see the report. |