Student Agency and Engagement

This book offers fresh perspectives on the challenges of assessment and feedback in higher education. A must-read for university leaders, academics, and educational developers, it asks ‘what if’ questions to unlock some of the systemic problems of assessment and feedback. It shifts the debate to focus on students’ experience at a programme level, introducing a different way of thinking about assessment and feedback, and advancing the value of theories of alienation and engagement.

Based on the ‘Transforming the Experience of Students through Assessment’ (TESTA) project, the book discusses a method for understanding the impact of assessment and feedback on student learning. Drawing on evidence from TESTA, it provides practical insights about changing programme assessment patterns to foster student agency and engagement. The book gives impetus to changing the design assessment and feedback, inviting academics, educational leaders, and students into more transparent, open, and shared decision-making about assessment and feedback beyond the module level.

This key title is designed to support academics and educational leaders to making sustainable and systemic improvements to the pedagogy of assessment. It expands on good principles, practices, and theories about how students learn from assessment and feedback by paying attention to a programme level perspective of the student experience.