Low-effort high-impact formative assessment to demystify marking criteria

Dr Fleur Corbett, Lecturer in Experimental Pscyhology, discusses improving student confidence and assessment literacy through guided formative assessments.

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Meaningful formative assessment opportunities at scale 

Students often report feeling anxious about assessments, and struggling to understand marking criteria, how to use their feedback, and how to do well. Improving assessment and feedback literacy through formative assessment activities could help students to feel more confident to succeed. However, individual formative feedback is not always feasible for large core modules.  

Simply providing an indicative answer is not sufficient if students do not engage and understand how this marking criteria will be applied to their own work. Guiding students to independently evaluate their work is crucial for enhancing their assessment and feedback literacy (Carless & Winstone, 2020; Nicol & Macfarlane-Dick, 2006). In a module with ~200 students where we already provided marking criteria, example answers to short answer questions (SAQs), weekly quizzes, and study groups, we also developed a formative activity to improve student confidence, assessment and feedback literacy. 

Quick creation of a formative assessment activity

We designed a formative activity delivered through Moodle and pre-recorded content that required active student engagement and guided students through writing and marking their own SAQ answer. To explore scalability, we focused on reducing preparation time using resources from previous summative assessments, resulting in a 14-minute pre-recorded video and Moodle links that took only 75 minutes to create.  

Essential formative activity components: 

The formative activity comprised several sequential elements wrapped in a single Moodle link: 

1. An example SAQ and answer 

2. The marking criteria  

3. A quiz to answer a SAQ from a previous summative assessment 

   Students answered the SAQ and marked their own responses using the marking criteria provided. 

4. A pre-recorded video with an explanation of marking practices, the indicative answer, annotated examples of student SAQ answers, FAQs and tips for SAQ preparation.  

   The pre-recorded video began with an explanation of marking practices before the indicative answer (written for the previous summative assessment) was shared, highlighting key strengths and weaknesses. Students then reviewed annotated examples of real student answers to this SAQ; students were invited to mark these annotated examples and were then informed of the actual marks received. Finally, students were asked to reflect on their self-assigned marks, identifying strengths and areas for improvement. The video concluded with a recap of FAQs and tips for SAQ preparation.  

As the activity was pre-recorded and links available on Moodle, students could move through it at their own pace and recap as required. Over 50% of students completed the activity within the first week alone.   

Student Confidence 

Students also rated their confidence in answering an SAQ and understanding how marking criteria would be applied. We found that student confidence increased by an average of 20% after completing the formative assessment and feedback. 

Low-effort = high-reward of increasing student confidence in assessment and feedback literacy 

By creating a video to guide students through an assessment and discussing resources that were already prepared, we were able to rapidly produce a formative assessment activity that significantly increased student confidence in assessment and feedback literacy. 

Fleur's top tip

Use resources from previous assessments – such as an indicative answer with key features, real student answers and their marks – together with a narrative explanation to guide students through an assessment activity with minimal effort.