Ecological validity of assessment on foundation year

Описание: This talk was part of the 2023 BALEAP Biennial Conference at the University of Warwick.

It is often argued that an educational programme, such as a university foundation year, should not be reduced to preparing students to complete their assessment tasks. Instead, a well-developed course should aim to equip students with skills that will help them be successful in their future academic and professional activities (Stazicker & Woods, 2022, p. vii). However, such reasoning implies that the skills needed to perform the assessment tasks are insufficient and/or not directly relevant to the real-life requirements of the students’ future functioning in their chosen disciplines. In my talk, I will argue that this dichotomy, between preparation for assessment and developing useful real-life skills (as if academic assessment was not part of real life), should have no place in education. Indeed, assessments incorporated into a course need to have the ecological validity, and thus to “bridge the gap between lab and life” (Holleman et al., 2020), assessments ought to resemble the tasks that the students are likely to perform within their chosen disciplines.

Another reason for which assessment tasks need constant reappraisal to ensure they stay relevant is the students’ natural tendency to prioritise assessment-related activities. This focus of students’ engagement is reflected in my observations (I believe a lot of teachers can relate to this), as well as in quantitative data that I have collected: statistics of engagement with asynchronous contents, and student survey results. Students prioritising their assessment tasks is often regarded as unhelpful, as it seems to be underpinned by perceiving a given assessment as a goal, rather than a means to future success. Nevertheless, rather than focussing on changing our students’ mindsets, I feel we should channel their engagement into positive learning outcomes.

I will therefore reflect on the assessments that are commonly built into educational programmes and discuss their ecological validity (I shall briefly justify my choice of this term over alternatives such as “contextual validity” or “mundane realism”). I will also share my experiences of reviewing the foundation year programme and assessments within it at Bloomsbury Institute London (with EAP embedded in a range of academic and life skills: evaluating the credibility of various sources of information, summarising and synthesising key ideas, expressing oneself in a coherent way, developing good study habits, becoming familiar with the basics of market research), and I will reflect on the challenges we have faced.

References

Holleman, G. A., Hooge, I. T. C, Kemner, C., & Hessels, R. S. (2020). The ‘Real-World Approach’ and Its Problems: A Critique of the Term Ecological Validity. Frontiers in Psychology 11, 721. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00721

Stazicker, A., & Woods, N. (2022). Teaching International Foundation Year: A Practical Guide for EAP Practitioners in Higher and Further Education. Routledge.