Aligning Assessment with Outcomes

Aligning assessment with intended course learning outcomes is crucial to assessment as learning.

• Learning outcomes prescribe what students are expected to demonstrate they have learned.
• The assessment plan shows how they will demonstrate their learning.

These two elements must operate in parallel if the assessment is to be valid. For example, for a learning outcome stating that students will develop professional communication skills, assessment tasks that focus only on academic communication skills cannot be regarded as valid.

Wherever possible, plan the assessment, including full details of each assessment task, at the time the course outline is initially developed, so that learning outcomes can be seen to be assessable and achievable within the timeframe of the course.

Often, learning outcomes are framed well in advance of detailed assessment plans – for example, to accord with professional-accreditation requirements. Then, when the assessment plan is being developed, it becomes clear that the approved learning outcomes were framed poorly, it is too late to change the outcomes, and uncomfortable compromises have to be made.

Benefits

By directly aligning assessments with course learning outcomes, you can achieve numerous benefits. For example:

• Students can see clearly what to focus on, and how to demonstrate their learning.
• Assessment feedback framed by criteria that have been derived from the learning outcomes helps guide students towards what really counts in the course.
• Staff can use learning outcomes when planning learning and assessment activities and tasks. For example, they can map particular task types to the relevant learning outcomes, and assign grade weightings appropriate to the relative importance of those outcomes.
• Staff can also use the alignment framework when (a) developing assessment criteria and strategies for engaging students in a dialogue about assessment, and (b) reflecting on the overall effectiveness of the curriculum and their teaching.
• Learning outcomes that are systematically assessed at course level can be shown to contribute to program-level outcomes, and thus to information provided to students, employer groups, professional bodies and other stakeholders about graduation standards.

Challenges

• Planning for assessment alignment can be difficult, especially when no neat and mutually exclusive relationship exists between individual learning outcomes and particular assessment tasks. It's important to make sure that every learning outcome is assessed, and that every assessment maps onto a learning outcome.
• You will need to be clear about the weightings of each assessment, so that students can allocate their time and effort appropriately.
• Each assessment needs to have the appropriate degree of complexity to ensure that students are learning at the level expected of them; these are discussed below under "Select aligned assignment tasks".

Strategies

Be explicit about constructive alignment

Constructive alignment (Biggs & Tang, 2007) entails designing learning and assessment based on the intended learning outcomes. If learning and planned activities explicitly state their alignment with learning outcomes, students can construct their own learning.

The diagram below shows alignment as an iterative process, adjusted according to each experience of conducting a course.

Figure 1: Constructive alignment (Houghton, 2004)

When you plan assessment, and when you communicate the assessment plan to students, using a table or other visual aid can help illuminate the relationships between:

• the learning outcomes
• the learning activities and opportunities for formative feedback, and
• the assessment tasks.

Table 1 shows sample course learning outcomes mapped to both class discussion activities and assessment tasks, to check the validity of the assessment plan.

Mapping like this can reveal issues and omissions. For example, you might find that your assessment plan ignores some learning outcomes, or that you've set up a class activity that is unrelated to any of the learning outcomes.

Table 1: Alignment of learning outcomes, learning activities, and assessment tasks

	COURSE LEARNING OUTCOMES
DISCUSSION POINTS (entire class)	Discuss, critically analyse and place into context a wide range of interactive works	Demonstrate an understanding of the essential nature, ideas and language of interactivity	Use an iterative creative process to develop interactive projects	Work individually and collaboratively with peers to create works of interactive art or design	Propose prototype and produce an engaging and successful interactive experience
TALKING POINT 1 Cognitive aspects of interactivity	X	X
TALKING POINT 2 Affordances, function vs emotion	X	X
TALKING POINT 3 Can play be a useful interactive tool?	X	X
TALKING POINT 4 How can complexity be managed?	X	X
TALKING POINT 5 How to apply collaborative practice to current project?	X	X

 

	COURSE LEARNING OUTCOMES
PROJECTS (Individual and group)	Discuss, critically analyse and place into context a wide range of interactive works	Demonstrate an understanding of the essential nature, ideas and language of interactivity	Use an iterative creative process to develop interactive projects	Work individually and collaboratively with peers to create works of interactive art or design	Propose prototype and produce an engaging and successful interactive experience
PROJECT 1 – PART A Discovering the Principles of Interactivity (Individual)	X	X		X
PROJECT 1 – PART B Discovering the Principles of Interactivity (Group)		X	X	X
PROJECT 2 – PART A Designing an interactive Prototype (Individual)		X		X
PROJECT 2 – PART B Designing an interactive Prototype (Group)	X	X	X	X	X

Once you've mapped a course like this, you might need to reframe the learning outcomes themselves, so that they more clearly require observable desired action or behaviour, and relate that behaviour explicitly to course content and assessment tasks.

Check that outcomes are useful

Learning outcomes are useful when they are limited in number, and when each outcome:

• is framed as an achievable goal
• is clearly expressed so that its meaning is explicit
• places academic skills or personal learning in the context of the particular subject discipline
• includes a description of the kind of performances by which achievement will be judged (either within the outcome or in an associated set of assessment criteria)
• is specific about how complex and/or significant it is
• is memorable.

Select aligned assessment tasks

You can select assessment tasks that are aligned with course learning outcomes according to different schemes (two such schemes are described below).  

Tasks for different levels of learning

As mentioned under "Challenges", above, tasks need to address the appropriate level of learning complexity.  These levels are usually determined using Bloom's taxonomy of the cognitive domain, which starts at remembering (recognising or remembering facts and basic concepts) and moves through understanding (organising, summarising and stating the main ideas), applying (often in the form of problem-solving), analysing (relating parts to each other and to a whole, identifying motives or causes, making inferences, and finding evidence to support generalisations), synthesis (putting parts together to form a whole or bringing pieces of information together to form a new meaning) and creating (presenting and defending opinions and generating new information or insights) (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2021). The affective domain of attitudes, feelings and values (for example, Bloom et al., 1964) and the psychomotor domain of physical skills (for example, Dave, 1970) can be included, where relevant, in the types of learning outcomes to be translated into assessment plans.

Biggs and Tang's SOLO Taxonomy (Structure of the Observed Learning Outcome) (2007) is equally useful when analysing learning outcomes with an eye to aligning them with assessment plans. The SOLO Taxonomy frames assessment tasks using verbs that indicate the increasing complexity of, and extent of relationships among, the ideas and concepts for which the task will engender learning.

Figure 2: SOLO Taxonomy (Biggs & Tang, 2007)

Another way to determine which tasks will deliver particular learning outcomes is to analyse the outcomes in terms of the  transferable skills and attributes they represent.  

Figure 3 groups learning outcomes into eight domains of generic skills and attributes, and lists a range of tasks and methods that might be useful in achieving each outcome.

Figure 3: Suitable tasks according to generic domains of learning outcomes

Type of learning outcome	Suitable assessment tasks
Thinking critically and making judgements (Developing arguments, reflecting, evaluating, assessing, judging)	Essay Journal Letter of advice to... Present a case for an interest group Prepare a committee briefing paper for a specific meeting Book review (or article) for a particular journal Comment on an article's theoretical perspective
Solving problems and developing plans (Identifying problems, posing problems, defining problems, analysing data, reviewing, designing experiments, planning, applying information)	Solve a problem scenario Group work Work-based problem Draft a research bid to a realistic brief Analyse a case Write a conference paper or poster (or notes for a conference paper plus annotated bibliography)
Performing procedures and demonstrating techniques (Computation, taking readings, using equipment, following laboratory procedures, following protocols, carrying out instructions	Demonstration Role play or simulation Video (write script and produce/make a video) Lab report Illustrated manual on using the equipment, for a particular audience Observation of real or simulated professional practice, including written reflection
Managing and developing oneself (Working co-operatively, working independently, learning independently, being self-directed, managing time, managing tasks, organising)	Journal Portfolio Learning contract Group work
Accessing and managing information (Researching, investigating, interpreting, organising information, reviewing and paraphrasing information, collecting data, searching and managing information sources, observing and interpreting)	Annotated bibliography Project Dissertation
Demonstrating knowledge and understanding (Recalling, describing, reporting, recounting, recognising, identifying, relating and interrelating)	Written examination Oral examination Essay Report Comment on the accuracy of a set of records Devise an encyclopaedia entry or glossary Write an answer to a client's question Short-answer questions: True/false, multiple-choice, or brief text
Designing, creating, performing (Imagining, visualising, designing, producing, creating, innovating, performing)	Portfolio Performance Presentation Hypothetical scenario or simuluation Projects
Communicating (One and two-way communication, communication within a group, verbal, written and non-verbal communication. Arguing, describing, advocating, interviewing, negotiating, presenting, using specific written forms)	Written presentation (essay, report, reflective paper, etc.) Oral presentation Group work Discussion/debate/role play Participate in a "court of enquiry" Presentation to camera