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Centre for Professional Development
Leadership & Assessment: Strengthening the Nexus
Project Overview
Assessment and feedback are key components of curriculum throughout the Higher Education sector playing a critical role in shaping the quality of student learning. While there are many examples of good assessment practice within tertiary institutions, many of these are at an individual academic or unit level. In this project, Macquarie University intends to develop ‘assessment leaders’ who will promote and support the strategic and systematic development of assessment and feedback throughout the institution.
The Aim
The purpose of the project is to develop through a distributed leadership model, multi-level academic leadership across the institution, to promote and support the strategic and systematic enhancement of assessment and feedback, and the development of transparent and coherent policy frameworks at all levels (unit, program, department and division).
The Process
A Participatory Action Research (PAR) approach will be adopted to:
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assessment practices. |
The project will encompass the:
- individual,
- unit,
- program (starting with three departments in the university) and
- institutional levels.
A feature of the project is that of developing practitioners who are an empowered group of leaders in effective assessment practice. These leaders will be able to positively influence departmental, institutional and ultimately, sectorial thinking. The project will incorporate elements of Developmental Action Learning (DAL) in order to strengthen the acquisition of leadership knowledge and skills by the participants. The participants will not only investigate and reflect upon their own assessment practices but also those at a unit, departmental and program level and how to effect change at each of those levels.
The project will be developed in three phases:
- Formation of the multi-level ‘Leaders in Effective Assessment Practice’ (LEAP) group to participate in the action research process. This group design and implement an assessment audit at departmental level and use this and other data to inform a review of departmental processes and policies on assessment.
- A refinement of the leadership and organisational development model and roll out to other divisions, through the further engagement of members from other cognate areas to the LEAP group.
- Institutional rollout and dissemination of findings to the Sector.
Project outcomes
- An enhanced assessment audit tool for sector-wider use
- A framework for leadership development and capacity building
- A methodology for integrating best practice at a study unit, programme and institutional level
- A methodology of evaluation for a PAR process
- A sector-wide Assessment Leadership Community of Practice
Support for this project has been provided from the Carrick Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, an initiative of the Australian Government Department of Education, Science and Training. It will run at Macquarie University from September 2006 until July, 2008.
For further information contact:
Dr Sharon Fraser
Project Leader
Email: sharon.fraser@mq.edu.au
Tel: 02 9850 8446
Dr Marina Harvey
Research Manager
Email: marina.harvey@mq.edu.au
Tel: 02 9850 9779