Case Study 5: Personal progress: Assessing students against themselves

The University Sector

Name: Dr Julie Jackson-Gough
Organisation: The University of Waikato
Email: jjjnz@waikato.ac.nz
Researcher: Jill Musgrave

In brief

'Students are not assessed against each other; they are assessed against themselves. In this course, they are rewarded for putting in the effort.'

A university lecturer who teaches music to students preparing to be primary school teachers makes full use of her own skills and experience to promote individual student progress. She says, 'My passion is music, and my students should take music into the schools confidently and competently.'

Assessment tasks focus on individual progress with students being rewarded for the amount of progress they make compared with their starting point. For example, two students who begin the paper with vastly different levels of ability and expertise might finish the paper with similar grades. It depends on the amount of personal progress each student has made.

Julie reports that students understand and value this approach to assessing their progress.