Assessment and Accreditation

This report contains the outcomes of two of the sub-projects undertaken by the LARA consortium, dealing respectively with the broader questions relating to the assessment and accreditation of the period abroad and with the more specific area of the learning agreement. The former was co-ordinated by David Drake of Middlesex University, the latter by Jean Burrell of Oxford Brookes University.

Assessment and Accreditation

The parts of the report dealing with the broader questions of assessment and accreditation are based on discussions and interviews with academic staff involved in the period abroad in some fifteen HEIs and develop issues related to assessment and accreditation raised at the four workshops run in April/May 1998 by the Residence Abroad Matters group (RAM) and in other modern language fora. The report aims to identify the key issues concerning accreditation and assessment, to note problems that academic staff have encountered relating to accreditation and assessment and, drawing on existing practice, to suggest possible solutions.

The word possible is used quite deliberately, since, although colleagues can clearly learn from one another, it is inadvisable to attempt to be too prescriptive. There is a very wide range of approaches and perceptions about the year abroad across the sector. The view of and organisation of the year abroad, and the place of assessment and accreditation within it, is shaped by the history of each institution, the history and ethos of the department/school/faculty within which modern languages is located, the structure of the modern languages degree programme, the degree of autonomy (or otherwise) enjoyed by modern languages, the regulations laid down by the institution defining student programmes, the views and attitudes of individual members of staff within modern languages, especially those with power and influence, etc. Because of the diversity that arises from this, what works well in Institution A (with its own culture, history, structure, regulations etc) may not be applicable to Institution B.

The second reason for refusing to be prescriptive concerns my relations with those who generously gave up their time to discuss the year abroad (and in particular assessment and accreditation) with me. These meetings were invaluable as a way of identifying the year abroad initiatives undertaken by Modern Languages colleagues and importantly of learning about their concerns and difficulties. This helped me to frame a paradigm for the debate about assessment and accreditation of the period abroad.

The basis on which these discussions took place was that I was seeking to analyse assessment and accreditation within the overall scheme of the year abroad, to identify those aspects of assessment and accreditation which colleagues thought worked well but also to discuss problems which they had encountered. I was very impressed by the openness and honesty of these discussions which would, I feel, have been more constrained if these colleagues had felt I was coming to judge or assess what they were doing by seeking to identify and publicise "good practice". Such an approach, I felt, would have had the ring of an "inspection" about it and that was something I was keen to avoid.

Furthermore, as I have hinted above, the concept of "good practice" needs to be treated with some caution. To be meaningful in practical terms, "good practice" must be firmly located within the specific context in which it arises and must be related to the aims and objectives of the exercise (in this case, the year abroad in general and assessment and accreditation in particular). In other words, we have to agree on what we are attempting to achieve before we can pronounce on what is "good practice". Given the diversity of attitudes to and expectations of the year abroad, what is "good practice" here may not be appropriate or practicable there.

This report could not have been written without the help and support of those colleagues at the following universities who made time to discuss issues of accreditation and assessment, namely Durham, Cambridge, Strathclyde, Liverpool, Liverpool John Moores, Manchester Metropolitan, King's College, London, Oxford Brookes, Sunderland, Central Lancashire, Bath, University of London (School of Slavonic Studies). I would like to thank Dr Richard Whewell (University of Strathclyde), Caroline Campbell (The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education) and Stephen Adam (University of Westminster) for their help in clarifying for me The European Credit Transfer System. I would further like to thank colleagues who attended the RAM workshops, and the administrative staff at the LARA project. I would like to thank Karen Pratt at King's College London for co-ordinating a student questionnaire and colleagues at Middlesex University, in particular Professor Gabrielle Parker, Mike Dawney, Head of European and Collaborative Programmes, and Trinidad Manchado, Paddy Manning, Edgar Schroeder who undertook the bulk of the work involved in conducting two student surveys and two sets of student interviews.

David Drake
Middlesex University

The Learning Agreement

This sub-project sprang initially from a domestic concern. The BA Hons Languages for Business programme run at Oxford Brookes had been using learning agreements for some years in conjunction with the two work- placements students are required to carry out in Years 2 and 4 of their course. However, both students and staff concerned, while recognising the usefulness of the instrument, were somewhat dissatisfied with its format. Students found it difficult to devise objectives outside the context of the placement and staff correspondingly often found the agreements completed by their students unambitious and repetitive.

The project was therefore seen as an opportunity to attempt to produce a package of materials that would, first, improve on those in use at Brookes and, secondly, provide the basis for a scheme that could be adapted for use in other institutions and for other types of course. After searching the LARA project database and contacting the few other institutions claiming to use some form of learning agreement, the materials already in existence were revised and amplified: guidance notes for students and tutors and a preliminary self-appraisal stage were added.

Colleagues preparing students on a variety of courses at four universities (Essex, Central Lancashire, South Bank, West of England) agreed to trial the materials during 1998/9. In the autumn of 1999, both staff and students completed feedback questionnaires. In addition, a number of interested staff at other institutions, and my own colleagues at Brookes, took the time to study and give further feedback on the materials.

The majority of students piloting the materials were very positive about their usefulness both as an instrument for planning and monitoring their progress while abroad and as an example of how they might proceed in the future. Their tutors were also on the whole impressed with the results and some planned to continue using the process. Colleagues at other universities who evaluated the materials recognised their merits as a basis for an element that they would consider introducing into their preparation of students for residence abroad. I would like to thank all those who participated for their precious time and useful feedback, and my colleague Jackie Smith Langlais for her valuable assistance.

Although some revisions have been made as a result of this feedback, they are relatively few and not extensive. This is because the intention is (a) that the forms and accompanying guidance notes should be brief enough not to deter and (b) that they should be indicative rather than prescriptive, so that colleagues can expand and adapt according to their own context.

Jean Burrell
Oxford Brookes University

The report is presented in seven sections:

1. The Background
2. Assessed Activities
3. Problems of Assessment
4. Possible Ways Forward
5. The Learning Agreement
6. Accreditation
7. Conclusion