AIMS

The research presented here, called EvalPART, is part of what could be named “learning-oriented assessment” (Carless, Joughin and Mok, 2006). This is characterized by tackling, via carrying out authentic tasks of assessment, an active participation of the university student in the assessment process and a continuous teacher-student interaction through feedback, thus allowing the improvement of the student’s performance.

The goal of the project was to consolidate a permanent organizative structure of collaboration among educational researchers. This would allow the development of research projects on the subject: the participation of students in assessment. The specific aims were:

1. To set the limits of the state of the situation in each university about the real participation of students in the assessment process.
2. To design strategies favouring the participation of students in the assessment process.
3. To evaluate strategies favouring the participation of students in the assessment process.
4. To divulge results and products.
5. To hold meetings in the University of Cádiz and the University of Seville and in Latin America as means of exchange.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

In the second half of the last century a series of landmarks took place that have marked the development of learning assessment in Higher Education. The 60s meant a systemization via educational measuring and the concepts of reliability and validity, as well as the incorporating of multiple choice tests. In the 70s, there was the introduction of the differentiation of the types of assessment (summative/formative). In the 80s, the value of self-assessment and peer assessment was identified. In the 90s, the importance of assessment as a regulating element of the learning process was recognized. Recent research has insisted on the need to develop the creative capacity of students via their active participation in assessment (Falchikov, 2005; Boud and Falchikov, 2007). For Boud and Falchikov, this implication of a more active form in the assessment processes is one of the fundamental directions in which innovations in learning assessment is being introduced. As these authors clearly show, current society demands something more than passive, conformist graduates with a predetermined assessment regime.

The democratization of teaching sets new challenges for teachers. Thus, to help in the learning of university students it is necessary to identify what their “logics”, their difficulties and the obstacles that they come across during their learning are. At the same time, the students themselves must recognize these difficulties so that they may ask for and find the means that they need to overcome them. This requires, in both teachers and students, a new culture of assessment in which assessment activities manage to be, at the same time, learning activities. Thus, the scientific and technical advances and the developments in the field of learning force university education to set out new strategies. This is why authors such as Bordás and Cabrera (2001), Biggs (2003), Falchikov (2005) or Carless, Joughin and Mok (2006) have been urging these alternative strategies to traditional assessment and others (e.g., Ibarra, 2007) are analyzing and studying them.

BIGGS, J.B. (2003). Teaching for Quality Learning at University. (2nd Ed). Buckingham: SRHE and Open University Press. BORDÁS, M.I. AND CABRERA, F.A. (2001). Estrategias de evaluación de los aprendizajes centrados en el proceso. Revista Española de Pedagogía, 218, 25-48. BOUD, D. AND FALCHIKOV, N. (2007). Rethinking assessment in Higher Education. Learning for the longer term. Oxon: Routledge CARLESS, D.; JOUGHIN, G. AND MOK, M.M.C. (2006). Learning-oriented assessment: principles and practice. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 31 (4), 395-398. FALCHIKOV, N. (2005). Improving assessment through student involvement. London: Routledge Falmer. IBARRA, M.S. (COORD.) (2007). Proyecto SISTEVAL: Recursos para el establecimiento de un sistema de evaluación del aprendizaje universitario basado en criterios, normas y procedimientos públicos y coherentes. Cádiz: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Cádiz.