Influences on the assessment of graduate attributes in higher education

Hughes, C. & Barrie, S. (2010). Influences on the assessment of graduate attributes in higher education. Assessment & Evaluation in HIgher Education, 35(3), pp. 325-334.

outcomes-based approach to the quality assurance of standards in higher education

advocacy for the establishment of constructive alignment between learning outcomes and assessment without acknowledging other factors that need to be addressed in planning for the effective assessment of graduate attributes.

Assessment often takes the form of tasks such as essays and examinations conducted within the boundaries of discrete courses or modules, traditions which remain unquestioned and unchallenged because of their long association with particular disciplines.

Though outcomes-based approaches to curriculum have been responsible for a shift of focus to the assessment of student learning as a more valid demonstration

that graduate attributes are most effectively embedded in assessment when they frame curriculum development and when students are engaged as active partners in directing their own learning through negotiation of assessment tasks, collection of evidence of progress in relation to specific attributes,