Reflective assignments can be assessed in different ways; below you will find information about summative, formative, peer, and self-assessment of assignments. TermHow it is used in this sectionAssessmentRefers to when one or more people judge how well a completed task meets specific criteria. This can include self-assessment, peer-assessment and assessment performed by staff. In ‘for completion’ assessment, the only criteria for assessment is whether or not the task has been completed; the quality of completion is not judged.AssignmentRefers to any task completed outside of contact hours such as reflective projects, essays, or journals. These may or may not be assessed. ActivityRefers to any task completed during contact hours such as reflective discussions, group work, journal writing, or presentations. These may or may not be assessed. Criteria and rubrics can help you in your assessmentAs highlighted on the ‘Should I assess?’ page, different levels of assessment will either require or benefit from explicit criteria and rubrics. They will help you in your assessment and will particularly support the reflectors when producing their reflections. Moreover, if you decide to use peer or self-assessment, criteria and rubrics will be of great help as part of the guidelines students should be given for the assessment process.Should I assess? Assessment types that work well for reflective assignmentsReflective assignments lend themselves well to most types of assessment.Classic summative assessmentIn contrast to reflective activities, reflective assignments work particularly well for summative assessments that might carry high proportions of the overall course marks. This would be similar to a final essay in a course.For example, this could be:A reflective journalA report that pulls on evidence from a reflective journalA reflective blogA reflective essay on the student’s development in the courseA reflective essay on meeting benchmark statementsA reflective essay on a particular experience (for example a critical incident in an experiential learning course)A skills-development logPeer-assessment can be used, but summative assessment might lend itself better to assessment from tutors or course organisers. While it is strictly possible, self-assessment might not suit summative work and it is recommended to use for formative work instead. Summative assessment performed by:ProsConsCourse organiser (tutors)You ensure that every assignment is marked according to your standard (this is valuable given marks are attached)Easier to moderate and use with Exam BoardsTime consumingOften one perspectiveStudents will not have the chance to develop and learn from assessing workPeer-assessedGives students more responsibilityAllows students to reflect on others’ work and get different examples of how the assignment could be doneCan reduce staff time commitment while ensuring all students receive feedbackSupports students’ assessment literacyLearning to fairly assess other people’s work is a valuable skillGives the students practice for assessing their own workRequires very clear guidelines for students that takes time to produce (however, when the guidelines have been created they can be reused next time)Can require additional moderationIf reflections are personal, you might have confidentiality issues by showing them to others. Students need to be informed in advance if this will happen.Students may mark strategically given that it is summative and therefore a high-stakes assessment and purposely inflate or deflate certain marks.Not all students welcome peer assessment believing it lacks validity – the rationale and value needs to be clearly conveyed.Summative assessments are high-stakes assessment. It is therefore important that students receive support on how to reflect and perform well. For instance, having a chance to practise in a low-stakes environment such as formative assessment can be valuable. Formative assessmentReflection is an excellent way of checking-in partway through an initiative and supporting students with their further development. Any kind of formative assessment is a valuable way of practising for a summative assignment and therefore smaller or interim versions of final assessments are great for formative feedback.For example, this could be:Individual entries from a reflective journalA reflective blogpostAn interim essay on development during the course or on benchmark statementsDrafts on reflective summative assessmentsReflective workbooksAs mentioned, formative assessment is low-stakes and can be a good way of engaging either peers or students themselves in the assessment process.Formative assessment performed by:ProsConsCourse organiser (tutors)You ensure that every assignment receives feedback according to your standards – this can be valuable to prepare students for the final assessmentTime consumingOften one perspectiveStudents will not benefit from any of the advantages of either peer or self-assessmentPeer-assessedGives students more responsibilityAllows students to reflect on others’ work and get different examples of how the assignment could be doneCan reduce staff time commitmentAn easy way of ensuring students get a lot of feedback during a courseOpportunity to gain someone else’s view about how to do an assignmentHelps to develop ability of assessing others’ and own workRequires clear guidelines for students, which takes time to devise (although these can be reused)You might want to moderate (takes time)If reflections are personal, you might have confidentiality issues by showing them to others. Students need to be informed in advance if this will happenSelf-assessedGives high levels of responsibility to studentsIs very reflective, and therefore supports the student’s learningCan reduce staff time commitmentDevelops the student’s ability to critically look at their own workLowered validity of the feedback students may give themselvesCan require moderation to ensure that all students’ feedback to themselves is validRequires detailed instructions and criteria/rubricsFor completion or pass/failReflective assignments can easily be implemented ‘for completion’ or ‘pass/fail’. Including reflection ‘for completion’ will ensure that students start the process, but may not necessarily fully engage with it . By creating a ‘pass/fail’ option you ensure that students will engage with the reflective process at least to the point of ‘good enough’ .Types of reflective assignments that can work well ‘for completion’ or ‘pass/fail’:Reflective journals/diariesReflective workbooksSkillsdevelopment logsReflective videos/audio recordingsWhile ‘pass/fail’ of assessment is lower stakes than many other forms of summative assessments and ‘for completion’ is generally very low stakes, you still have the responsibility of ensuring that students have enough information on how to complete the assignment satisfactorily. For ‘pass/fail’, just like any other summative assessment, it means having both criteria and a rubric.Where next?To get a sense of typical assessment criteria to include when assessing reflection, head to the assessment criteria page. For sample rubrics, see the rubrics page.Assessment criteria Assessment rubrics This article was published on 2024-10-15