Assessment Principles to Support Student Wellbeing

Clarity and transparency in expectations, goals and standards

Clear, well-aligned assessment tasks help students set learning goals, and can boost motivation and engagement. Research shows that organised and transparent assessment methods can reduce anxiety, thereby enhancing learning, retention, and test performance in a fair manner (Abelson et al., 2023). Transparent assessment criteria help students understand expectations and how to succeed, fostering a sense of competence.

Strategies to ensure clarity in expectations, goals and standards include:

• Clearly (and repeatedly) communicating assessment criteria, expectations and goals
• Justifying assessment choices and decisions in ways that demonstrate understanding of students’ perspectives, interests and goals
• Helping students understand what constitutes high-quality work (e.g., by providing and/or discussing exemplars)

Variety and choice in assessment topics and formats

Research shows that assessments promoting student autonomy, self-regulation, and engagement are associated with increased intrinsic motivation and positive affect. Offering meaningful choices in assessment topics and formats allows students to pursue their interests and strengths, enhancing motivation and engagement. This approach fosters a sense of autonomy. In addition, offering a variety of assessment formats enables diverse learners to demonstrate their knowledge and skills in ways that align with their strengths and interests, promoting engagement, competence and reducing stress. When students perceive assessments as fair and respectful of their individual differences, they are more likely to be motivated and experience positive emotional outcomes.

Strategies to provide variety and choice in assessment include:

• Allowing students to select project topics or choose from options
• Offering choice in assessment formats; that is, in how they demonstrate their learning outcomes (e.g., written vs oral)
• Allowing students to decide which tasks count towards their grade (e.g., students select from tasks completed during semester for a graded portfolio submission)

Balanced and manageable assessment workload

Ensuring a balanced, manageable workload is a fundamental aspect of assessment practices designed for supporting student wellbeing. Excessive workload can lead to stress, anxiety, and burnout, negatively affecting academic performance and health. Conversely, when workload is manageable, students have the capacity to engage more deeply with learning materials. This may result in higher-quality work and sustained motivation and enthusiasm for studies, which in turn supports wellbeing.

A balanced approach to graded assessment reduces unnecessary pressure and provides a more accurate representation of learning than a single large task at the end of semester. However, a careful balance is needed: while multiple high-stakes assessments can contribute to high stress, too many frequent graded assessments throughout the semester can also be overwhelming for students.

Strategies to ensure a balanced and manageable assessment workload include:

• Distributing a few assessments evenly throughout the semester
• Progressively increasing assessment complexity (i.e. designing assessments that build on previous knowledge and skills)
• Incorporating low-stakes or ungraded formative assessments (e.g., in-class quizzes, self-check online quizzes) which allow students to monitor their learning

Constructive feedback on assessment

The quality of feedback students receive has a powerful effect on their confidence and motivation to learn and persist when they face challenges. Constructive, informative feedback that explains how the work students have produced can be improved and why the changes are important, can foster their sense of competence and motivation. Receiving no feedback, or uninformative or overly negative feedback can undermine student motivation.

Strategies for wellbeing-supportive feedback practices include:

• Providing opportunities for students to rehearse and practice necessary skills for assessment tasks while providing timely feedback
• Fostering student engagement with feedback (e.g., encouraging questions and discussion)
• Focusing on students’ individual progress and academic development, not just performance (i.e. grades)

Guidance for managing disappointing feedback and setbacks

Receiving disappointing marks/grades or experiencing setbacks in assessments can be challenging for students. While students may seem at times to be overly fixated with grades rather than their progress in understanding what they’re learning, disappointing marks can impact their self-esteem, motivation, and overall wellbeing. Educators can make a significant impact on how students respond to disappointing grades and setbacks by providing empathetic, constructive, and practical support. This is essential in building resilience and autonomy of students as they progress in their studies.

Strategies for supporting students to manage disappointing feedback and setbacks include:

• Providing clear guidelines on how to interpret feedback and offering specific steps students can take to improve their future performance (Hattie & Timperley, 2007)
• Helping students set achievable goals based on feedback
• Normalising setbacks and sharing strategies for overcoming them
• Providing resources for study skills and/or managing setbacks and disappointing marks

Promotion of self-reflection and self-regulation

Assessments that promote self-reflection and self-regulation can enhance students' academic growth and wellbeing. Self-reflection in assessments encourages students to identify their strengths and weaknesses, understand their learning processes, and recognise patterns in their behaviour and performance.

Self-regulation involves managing one's thoughts, emotions, behaviours, and study approaches to enhance learning and personal effectiveness. Developing these skills is essential for academic success and overall wellbeing. Good self-regulators set realistic goals, manage time and resources effectively, and maintain a balanced approach to study and personal responsibilities. These refined skills lead to better time and task management, reducing procrastination and stress associated with last-minute work.

Strategies for promoting students’ self-reflection and self-regulation through assessment include:

• Encouraging students to engage in self-assessment of their understanding and skills, and reflect on learning strengths and areas for improvement (e.g., using self-assessment questionnaires, reflective writing pieces)
• Asking students to evaluate their own work and critically analyse their strengths and areas for improvement (e.g., using a self-assessment checklist, or evaluating their work against criteria and explaining their assessment)
• Asking students to set personal goals and benchmarks and monitor their own progress by seeking feedback and through self-review (e.g., goal setting and action plans, project progress logs, portfolios)

Fairness in weighting and recognition of effort

Integrating fairness in terms of weighting and effort into assessment design is crucial for promoting student wellbeing. This involves ensuring assessment weightings accurately reflect their importance to learning outcomes, avoiding disproportionate weighting of single assessments, and aligning task weighting with the time and effort required.

Fairness also involves acknowledging and rewarding students' efforts throughout the assessment process by incorporating elements like participation, engagement, and improvement over time into assessments. This approach creates a supportive learning environment that fosters a sense of belonging and promotes engagement and wellbeing.

Strategies for ensuring fairness in weighting and recognition of effort include:

• Being transparent about grading criteria, marking processes and rationale for weighting
• Acknowledging and rewarding the learning process and its improvement (e.g., through incorporating assessment of the task process as well as the outcome, or self-reflection on students’ learning development and growth)
• Regularly reviewing assessment practices to ensure weightings reflect the required effort