Publications

Collaborative assignments (e.g. group essay or group presentation) feature in EAP programmes but carry tensions around assessment, with particular concerns around fairness. This talk will evaluate the different assessment lenses available (including individual complementary assignment and assessing collaboration itself) and discuss the decision making process in developing a rationalized, justified and fairer assessment scheme for collaborative assignments. The assessment of collaborative assignments is widely recognized in the literature as an area of tension, particularly when it comes to summative assessment. When collaborative assignments are used in EAP programmes, these tensions are manifest. How can we assess students fairly? How can we measure collaboration? How can we differentiate between students or deal with free-riders? This talk will try to address these tensions, drawing on PhD research into EAP practitioner approaches and beliefs about collaborative assignments. It will discuss research participants’ evaluations of different models of assessment for collaborative assignments, which in turn brings into view their collaborative assessment identity. EAP practitioners are bound by the principles of fairness, transparency and simplicity when it comes to collaborative assignments, which in turn inform three guiding orientations. That is to say that they are reward orientated (wanting to ensure students get the results they deserve), practically orientated (wanting to ensure assessment is feasible and doable) and defensively orientated (wanting to ensure all assessment is rationalized and justified). The talk will then turn to the collaborative assessment algorithm, which is the series of considerations and decision trees that have to be navigated to develop a robust assessment scheme for collaborative assignments with positive washback. It may not be possible to develop a fully fair assessment scheme for collaborative assignments but through well informed decision making we can ensure such assessments are fairer.