This blog post is another in our series of scholarship-focused posts and summarises a report of this project, which investigates minoritised students’ experiences of assessment in higher education. The project lead was Dr Judy Chandler, and the co-researchers were Bob Hallawell and Rhiannon Moore. The project was funded by Praxis – WELS Centre for Scholarship and Innovation.
This blog post been edited by Dr Jane Cobb based on a Praxis project report by Dr Judy Chandler et al.
The Supporting Minoritised Students co-creation project found evidence of disparities in outcomes for minoritised PostGraduate Taught students and highlights the importance of students’ feedback literacy and existing capital.
“The general module assessment guidance… I seldom check that guidance because that’s too long and sometimes I think the information for me there is…is like too…too abstract, too general (interview participant).”
This study uses a change laboratory (a type of participatory, collaborative 
research within which ideas are tested) and case study methodology, in combination with analysis of quantitative data from outcomes of two Open University Master’s Programmes (in Education and in Childhood and Youth) and builds on existing literature.
The project reports the following key findings:
- Many minoritised students do less well in qualifications than their counterparts. (The project defines minoritised students as: “students minoritised by language, social processes or institutions”.) For example, Black, Asian and students who choose to share mental health conditions were awarded the lowest outcomes on certain courses. Further, black students completed their taught postgraduate studies with the lowest course outcomes of these three minoritised demographic groups.
- Application of feedback requires feedback literacy and is associated with students’ prior experiences and expectations. (I understand feedback literacy as being required to interpret the guidance and feedback around assessed work, which students have gained from previous study, and which would then feed forward to future assessed work.) The project finds that feedback literacy is associated with students’ prior (and cultural) experiences and expectations.
- Existing assessment support contributes to the replication of patterns of existing capital and academic identity. Credit transfer students, those with prior experience of study or work within similar domains, and those who were already familiar with the Open University systems, are more able to navigate their assessment experience and emerge with positive course outcomes. For students without pre-existing sources of this capital, strategies of navigation or resistance were more limited, as they were less able to draw on existing knowledge and experience to navigate the interpretation of assessment requirements, documentation, or feedback.
- Data highlights the impact of negative feedback on a student’s confidence and view of their own ability. Further, a lack of clarity and specificity meant that feedback was sometimes difficult for students to apply, particularly for those for whom English is an additional language.
The project makes the following recommendations:
Academic teams should consider assessment data across courses, pathways and qualifications.
When designing assessment guidance and support, it is important to consider any assumptions made about students’ existing knowledge and skills and to ensure that support is in place for those students without this experience.
At a qualification level, endeavour to provide some consistency in tutor support.
Students declaring mental health conditions should receive continued support throughout their course, not just at its outset, in preparation for final assessment.
Create ways for all students to feel a sense of belonging during their course.
This project provides insight and empirical data which can be drawn upon by practitioners interested in improving student experience of assessment in higher education, particularly in a distance and online setting.
In so doing, it supports, for example, the ongoing work of the Anti-Racist and Inclusive Assessment.
The project team states that future iterations of this project will incorporate the experiences of course team members and tutors working on the Master’s in Education and Master’s in Childhood and Youth, alongside those of minoritised students. There will be a continued emphasis on the co-creation of inclusive and accessible assessment support, which builds upon the varied experiences of this diverse group of co-collaborators.
For further information on this project, please contact [email protected] or visit the Open University Scholarship Exchange
“The proposal to develop this project to investigate the experience of all participants (tutors, course team and students), viewed as co-collaborators, seems an interesting way to strengthen and illuminate the data further. Both the concept of feedback literacy itself and the fact that it is associated with prior experience resonate with me as an ex-OU tutor (of many years!). Moreover, I have experienced that feedback can (unintentionally) affect a student’s confidence, and there is evidence to support this. Finally, the recommendation that a sense of belonging is created for students is something that, as tutors, we have been continually trying to achieve with varying degrees of success, such as by encouraging an active online student forum.” Dr Jane Cobb.
What are your thoughts on the findings and recommendations of this project?
