Dr Emma Folwell, Birmingham Newman University, shares what programme teams can learn from designing assessment that makes student development visible, examinable and defensible across a degree.
Universities often claim that students graduate with greater confidence, resilience and criticality. But how often are those claims actually examined through assessment, rather than simply assumed? Drawing on one programme’s design, this blog explores how assessment can be structured to make student development visible and defensible over time.
The problem of developmental claims
Claims about student development are embedded throughout higher education. Programme specifications speak of progression, while marking conversations often refer to students who have ‘come a long way.’
Development is central to how institutions articulate the purpose and value of a degree. Yet assessment systems are often organised around performances at particular moments: a portfolio submitted at the end of a module, an exam completed under time pressure, or a project assessed against criteria at a defined stage. While grades may be compared across modules to infer improvement, it is less clear how such comparisons substantiate claims of development across time. If development is to be something programmes can stand behind academically, assessment systems must therefore be designed to make growth visible, interrogable and defensible, rather than inferred from isolated performances.
Beyond motivation
Ipsative assessment is commonly understood as comparing students’ performance to their own prior work rather than to external norms or peer cohorts. It is often framed in terms of ‘personal best’ and continuous improvement rather than ranking (Hughes, 2011).
These motivational dimensions matter. In widening participation contexts in particular, foregrounding personal progress can support confidence and resilience. Treating ipsativity primarily as a motivational strategy risks undervaluing its potential, particularly in light of longstanding work on assessment judgement that distinguishes between criteria, standards and how performance is interpreted across contexts (Sadler, 2009).
Improvement is not straightforward to read across a programme in which tasks vary, criteria shift in emphasis, and academic judgements are made in different contexts. Apparent changes in performance may reflect altered assessment demands rather than changes in students’ underlying thinking or practice. The challenge, therefore, is not just whether students are improving, but how claims about improvement can be interpreted coherently across time.
Designing for continuity
Our response to this challenge was to build continuity into the structure of assessment itself. Rather than relying on informal comparisons across modules, we introduced a two-stage model at each level of study.
At the start of each level, portfolio modules assess students’ work against marking criteria derived from the programme’s taxonomy of learning. These assessments establish stage-based expectations and provide a stable reference point for later judgement.
At the end of the level, interview-based assessment shifts the focus from performance at a point in time to reasoning about change. Students revisit earlier feedback and experiences, accounting for how their thinking or practice has developed in relation to defined elements of the programme’s criteria.
During the interview, follow-up questions probe the coherence and specificity of these accounts, testing whether claims of change can be substantiated in relation to earlier work. While this approach shares features with broader programmatic assessment models (eg van der Vleuten, 2012), our emphasis is less on accumulating artefacts than on creating structured moments in which earlier judgements are explicitly revisited. Ipsative evidence informs judgement, but grades are determined by marking criteria aligned with learning outcomes derived from the programme taxonomy. Development is therefore assessed through shared standards, not in place of them.
Making development public and interrogable
Structural alignment alone, however, does not guarantee that developmental claims will withstand scrutiny. Portfolios make visible what students can produce at a particular stage and establish a reference point for later judgement. Interview-based assessment shifts attention to how students account for change across that record. In the interview, students evidence their development against defined elements of the programme’s criteria, drawing on earlier learning, experiences and feedback where relevant. For example, a student might explain how feedback on the evidential basis of an earlier portfolio prompted them to restructure a later project, describing not only what changed but how their understanding of evidence and argument developed. Interview questions then focus on the decisions the student made differently and the reasoning that informed them, testing whether claims of development are specific, coherent and grounded in identifiable actions.
Sustaining development through dialogue
Designing assessment to make development examinable requires more than alignment between portfolio and interview. Students also need structured opportunities to learn how developmental claims are framed, evidenced and evaluated. In our programme, this has meant embedding developmental dialogue across the student journey. Monthly academic life coaching sessions focus on goal setting, review and the translation of reflection into concrete action, encouraging students to connect feedback to subsequent decisions and to build an explicit narrative of change over time.
Periodic skills audits are aligned directly to published assessment criteria. These audits invite students to locate themselves against the programme taxonomy and identify areas for growth in relation to shared standards. Feedback processes are similarly dialogic. As a result, the student experience of ipsativity is not confined to summative assessment points but scaffolded through sustained dialogue, so that interview-based assessment draws on rehearsed evaluative language rather than improvised accounts of progress.
From aspiration to architecture
Universities will continue to claim that graduates leave with greater confidence, resilience and criticality. The question for programme teams is how far those claims can be examined rather than assumed.
Treating development as an assessment design problem shifts attention from impressions of improvement to practices that make change visible over time. It invites teams to ask how assessment points relate to one another, how criteria anchor conversations about growth, and whose development is most readily recognised. Making reasoning and expectations explicit can help ensure that students’ progress is not only supported but credibly evidenced.
How does your programme’s assessment design support students to evidence how they have changed over time?
Dr Emma Folwell is Head of Interdisciplinary Studies at Birmingham Newman University. Her work explores assessment design, evaluative judgement and programme-level approaches to evidencing student development across time.
References
Sadler, 2009: https://doi.org/10.1080/02602930801956059
Hughes, 2011: https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2010.486859
Van der Vleuten, 2012: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22364452/
