Assessment practices influence the quality of teaching, learning and students’ academic achievement (Wang & Brown, 2014; Pereira, Flores, & Niklasson, 2016; Barreira et al., 2017; Pereira, Flores, & Barros, 2017). As far as the learning process is concerned students think it is important to be involved in the topics to be assessed as well as in designing their own assessments (Stark et al., 2018). A review by Zeng et al. (2018) shows that it is required to develop students’ involvement in the assessment process, through, for instance, the use of alternative modes of assessment. Furthermore, Boud et al. (2018) highlight the need for research on assessment tasks in order to look at how the tasks are framed in a programme or how they influence students’ learning, instead of just addressing assessment tasks and how the students respond to it. Studies on assessment concluded that there are research gaps regarding students' perceptions of assessment practices used in higher education settings (Flores et al., 2015; Fernnades, 2015; Pereira, 2016; Solomonidou & Michaelides, 2017).This paper draws on a study aimed at contributing to fill the gap in research in this field. Particularly, it aims to analyse students ‘perceptions of assessment practices in Higher Education and their implication for teaching and learning process. This study is part of a wider project "Assessment in higher education: the potential of alternative methods".

This study is part of a 3-year research project "Assessment in higher education: the potential of alternative methods" funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (Government Funding Agency) (PTDC/MHCCED/2703/2014) and co-financed by European Regional Development Funds (FEDER) through the Competitiveness and Internationalization Operational Program (POCI) with the reference POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007562. Data were collected in five Portuguese public universities from the point of view of both university teachers and students. In accordance with procedures approved by the Ethics Committee of the University of Minho (Subcommittee on Ethics for Social and Human Sciences, ref. SECSH035 / 2016), teachers in the five universities were asked to schedule a time and place in which their students could be invited to complete a questionnaire. Data were collected in person and via email from February to July 2017. In total, 5549 students from five Portuguese public universities participated in the study. Out of the 5549 students, 5407 completed the questionnaire in the classroom and 142 students completed the questionnaire replying to the questions by using the link provided via e-mail. Approximately two-thirds of the participants are female (n=3488, 63.1%). Just over half of the participants were between 20 and 25 years old (55.7%). Participants were enrolled in different academic programmes, including Medical and Health Sciences, Exact Sciences, Engineering and Technology, Social Sciences, and Humanities. About four-fifths of the participants were in the first three years of an undergraduate or integrated master’s degree.

In regard to the ideas associated with assessment, formative dimension is more prominent in the field of Social Sciences. The summative dimension is more highlighted in Engineering Sciences and Technology. In turn, Social Sciences’ students associate assessment with negative emotions. Regarding the assessment methods, collective methods are more used in Engineering Sciences and Technology, followed by Social Sciences. In the Medical and Health Sciences, Humanities and Exact Sciences traditional methods of assessment are more used. Portfolios as assessment methods is more used in the areas of Engineering Sciences and Technology and Social Sciences. These and other issues will be discussed further in the paper.

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