Core elements of assessment and feedback

What is assessment and feedback?

This may seem obvious: universities teach and need to assess student learning to grade and award degrees and other qualifications. We need to know our students are learning what they need to learn and have good preparation for their future lives and careers. Both modes of assessment and feedback can have a big influence on how students work. Broadly there are two categories of assessment: summative and formative.

Summative can be seen as assessment of learning and often happens at the end of a course and determines what grades they get. Formative assessment is intended to help students learn (assessment for learning) and it can both give them a sense of development and help them learn and practice new things. Ideally, through experience, students start gauging the quality of their work and can make their own evaluations of their learning (assessment as learning).

Feedback is part of the assessment process that can help students in their learning. Typically, this is made up of comments on work students have completed and is intended to help them improve their work in future.  Feedback can more productively be seen as a process of dialogue between students and teachers rather than as a commodity produced by teachers for students. Feedback information can come at any time and from any source.

Why is it important?

Assessment and the feedback students get can be a big influence on their behaviour and experience of studying at university. They are both important elements of coherent course and programme design. Good assessment and feedback practices can help our students learn, motivate them to engage and develop their own independence and agency. You’ll see below that the University has developed some assessment and feedback principles and priorities that will help enhance not only our assessment and feedback practices but also connect with the other sections of this site.

Assessment and feedback principles and priorities

The following resources outline the assessment and feedback principles and priorities that form a new framework for reviewing and guiding practice.

• University of Edinburgh Assessment and Feedback Principles and Priorities (PDF) (Policy document, 10 pages)
• Assessment and Feedback – Principles and Priorities (Teaching Matters Blog post)

The principles and priorities are oulined in the below diagram, with a written summary of the diagram following.

Summary of diagram - assessment and feedback principles and priorities

• Fit for purpose - increased use of authentic assessment.
• In conversation with students - students seen as partners / co-creators in assessment and feedback.
• Inclusive, equitable and fair - assessment and feedback is inclusive by design.
• Reliable, robust and transparent - academic integrity built into assessment design. 
• Constructive, developmental and timely - with increased opportunity for formative and assessment and feedback, and feedback as ongoing dialogue. 
• Appropriate use of learning technology - Increased use of technology to support creativity, innovation and experimentation in assessment and feedback. 
• Overseen at programme level - Development of programme level (compared with course level) assessment.

Programme-level assessment

What is it?

Planning, conducting and overseeing assessment and feedback holistically across programmes rather than focusing on assessment at the course level. This means assessment and feedback can build progressively on experience across the programme lifecycle.

Why is it important?

Programme-level assessment allows mapping of assessments across the whole programme which can be important in identifying overassessment, deadline log jams and other pressure points. It can help study across a programme to be experienced as a coherently joined up experience for students. Ensuring students have a coherent learning experience across a whole programme helps them to develop their own understanding of the assessment process and to experience feedback as part of a developmental journey. This, in turn, can lead to enhancement of the educational experience and promote greater student satisfaction.

Programme learning outcomes can be tested across programmes in a more holistic way through programme teams working and planning together above the level of the course. It can also help to reduce both staff and students’ workloads through removing unnecessary elements.

For more details, you can read the following resources:

• Programme-level assessment: What is it, and why is it important?: A Teaching Matters blog post by Prof Patrick Walsh and Dr Neil Lent unpack what ‘programme-level assessment’ means, and explain why it is an important approach for effective curriculum design.
• Thinking programmatically about your thinking programmatically about your assessment and feedback practices: The programme spring-clean (PDF, 4 pages): This Heriot-Watt PDF guide by Sally Brown and Kay Sambell provides practical advice for teaching teams who would like to review and refresh assessment and feedback approaches at a programmatic level.
• Charlton, N., & Newsham-West, R. (2024). Enablers and barriers to program-level assessment planning. Higher Education Research & Development, 1–15.

Next steps

Learn more about embedding assessment and feedback in your practice

Read, watch and listen to a range of additional resources about assessment and feedback