Ipsative Assessment

Gwyneth Hughes is Reader in Higher Education at the Institute of Education, University of London, UK. She is a co-author of Learning Transitions in Higher Education (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).

"Ipsative Assessment provides an insightful look into the philosophies, principles, processes, and realities of assessment in education and beyond. Hughes's argument in favour of empowering learners and teachers provides a thought-provoking take on the potential and the limitations of assessment that is certain to make this book a favourite with teachers, learners, and educational assessment stakeholders alike." (Paraskevi Mylona, London Review of Education, Vol. 13 (3), December, 2015) "The take-home message from Ipsative Assessment: Motivation through Marking Progress is that ipsative assessment is not new, but formal institutional systems adopting this perspective are scarce. Therefore, in order to successfully support students' learning, institutions need to adopt a dual system approach that combines traditional purposes of assessments (e.g., competition) with processes that support scaffolded learning (i.e., ipsative assessment)." - British Journal of Educational Studies

• 1. A Fresh Look at Assessment 2. The Purposes of Assessment: Competition and Social Selection 3. Assessment for Learning: In the Shadows? 4. The Effects of Competition on Assessment for Learning 5. Exploring Ipsative Assessment 6. Making the Case for Ipsative Assessment: Assessment for Learning Revisited 7. Two Case Studies of Ipsative Assessment in Academic Setting 8. A Dual Systems Model of Assessment: Lessons from Doctoral Supervision 9. Leading Innovation and Change in Educational Settings: The Challenges of Assessment Reform 10. Institutional Case Study of Innovation in Assessment 11. Ipsative Assessment as a Feasible Utopia