Inclusive assessment

Students should only be assessed on what is necessary to demonstrate that they have met the learning objectives, regardless of their personal characteristics, background or incidental prior knowledge. For example, if presentation skills are not an explicit learning objective for an assignment, then they should not be taken into account in the assessment. Perhaps a different assessment method would be more appropriate if the grade is too strongly impacted by presentation skills.

Language can often cause confusion, for example for students with disabilities such as ASD or dyslexia, but also for students who are not studying in their native language. Therefore, keep assignment instructions and exam questions simple and concise so that you are not unintentionally assessing language or reading skills, which could cloud the measurement of the content-related objectives. When grading, do not hold students to unnecessarily high language proficiency standards if these are not relevant to the objectives of the course (of course, language proficiency should be taken into account in the assessment if this is relevant to the learning objectives and content of the course).

Use cases and examples that all students will recognize and that are relevant to the course content. Avoid examples that only some of the students will recognize, such as a commercial that only Dutch students would be familiar with. This will not allow you to assess the intended knowledge, but rather coincidental prior knowledge.

Make sure the result does not depend on just one assessment or not enough questions (greater chance of random hits or misses) and that there is sufficient variety in assessment methods (for example, avoid using predominantly written assignments throughout the programme, as this may disadvantage or favour certain students).

Make sure your grading is fair and reliable. Use clear rubrics and answer keys to ensure consistent and objective grading. Have assessors calibrate regularly when grading to prevent bias, or grade anonymously.

Use an accessible font (and let students know how they can set this themselves for digital assessments) and make sure your layout is clear and uncluttered.

Share examples of good work, rubrics, and assessment forms. Organise an (online) Q&A session about the assessment. Create a weekly planner with important dates and deadlines that you share not only via Canvas but also refer to during class.

The ‘hidden curriculum’, that is to say the unwritten rules, expectations and norms at university, is familiar to some students because of their prior education or background (Koutsouris et al., 2021). However, for students who are unfamiliar with these implicit rules and expectations, such as first-generation students and students with a lower socio-economic status, not understanding the rules of the hidden curriculum can have a negative impact on their well-being and academic performance. The perceived barrier to asking for help is often high.

For experienced lecturers, it is not always obvious what students perceive as implicit or unclear. When assessing, consider questions such as the following:

• When you ask for an essay or close reading, do students know what that is and what it should look like? Do they know what it means when you ask them to “analyse” or “evaluate” something?
• Some students are better at giving presentations or writing papers than others, without having explicitly learned this in your course, because of their previous education or background. How can you ensure that you are assessing students without bias, based on what they have learned, and not what they already knew? How can you help students who lack essential prior knowledge? See also Validity.

More and more students have to plan their studies around a disability, caregiving responsibilities, parenting, financial or housing concerns, a part-time job, and so on. Although we can’t take every individual situation into account as lecturers, it’s good to offer flexibility and variety where possible, for example by building in choices (in terms of subject or format), offering multiple submission dates and providing location- and/or time-independent assessments.

This often means that vulnerable students are the first to drop out. For example, allow compensation between partial results, avoid peak scheduling of deadlines and exams, and make resit arrangements flexible and accessible. Do make sure that this is balanced with lecturer workload.