An essay in the political economy of assessment design
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Abstract
This paper is an essay in the political economy of assessment design. My point of departure is that student approaches to assessment appear to have become more instrumental, and that there has been a correlative propensity in my teaching practice to ‘teach to the test'. Hence, both learners and teachers seem to have become more strategic in relation to assessment. This situation, I argue, is a product of power relations within contemporary Higher Education Institutions and the function Higher Education performs in the new capitalism. Assessment instrumentalism is part of a new learning culture; it is, I contend, a rational and pragmatic response to current social and economic imperatives. Thus, when designing assessments it is necessary to recognize and work with this strategic situation if we desire its reconfiguration. Reconfiguration and the design of assessments worth learning and teaching for is made possible, I contend, by the development of a pedagogy for itself.
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