Assessing Student Learning: A Common Sense Guide, Linda Suskie, Anker Publishing, 2004
Reviewed by Bland Tomkinson, University Adviser on Pedagogic Development, University of Manchester (UK)

Trust me to pick a book on assessment to review! What is a critical review if not some form of assessment? And do I use the same sort of approach to review as I do to student assessment? That proved to be more of a challenge than I thought and I guess that I might now be fitter to tackle another review having read through Linda Suskie's book!

This book sets out to be a 'practical, easy-to-read, what-to-do and how-to-do-it guide' and achieves comprehensive coverage. It follows a logical thread through the assessment process from questioning why we assess to looking at the end uses of assessment. However, I was sometimes irked by the slow start and by subject matter that appeared peripheral to the main theme. I was also discomfited by some missing links. Principal amongst the latter was any reference to Biggs concept of constructive alignment although Biggs(1) is referred to, obliquely, at one point. Whilst not all would agree with Biggs, the exclusion of any reference to this idea seems a regrettable omission. Certainly the links between learning goals and assessment are covered in the appropriate chapters.

Likewise with rubrics and scoring guides: I would have expected some guidance on how to overcome the problem of 'central tendency', particularly where the granularity is high i.e. the number of assessment headings is large. Another, and more significant omission, is any clear reference to the issues of assessing students with some degree of physical or psychological impairment. This is a major issue for many of us - good design of assessment can overcome some of the problems, but the variety of disabilities that we face means that we do have to go to considerable lengths to try and ensure consistency of results. Should I offer a different mode of examination to a dyslexic student or merely offer longer time to undertake a conventional timed test? Some clear 'common sense' guidance would be welcome here.

Reading this book in between marking a set of postgraduate portfolios led me to look closely at that section to see if there was anything that I could learn (apart from getting the rubric right in the first place!). I was a little disappointed at the relatively prescriptive approach - I eschew the 'been there, done that, got the T-shirt' approach - in particular a suggestion that there should be a page of reflection in which the student reflects on the whole portfolio. Maybe it's the way that that is worded, but I was just then taking candidates to task for not building reflection into every nook and cranny of their portfolios. Following on from a chapter on getting the students to reflect there appeared to be somewhat of a disjunction.
The idea of incorporating surveys and focus groups into the overall strategy is, to me, a novel one but one that I would still regard as somewhat peripheral. This is clearly one of Linda Suskie's strengths and she certainly convinced me that these approaches have some value in the practice of evaluating the learning process However, I guess that I tend to regard the assessment of students and the evaluation of the process (and also of staff) as essentially different things (and thought that everyone else did too!).

Reading this in the UK prompted two significant observations. First was that differences in culture and language across 'the pond' in no way detract from this book - it should meet the needs of a diverse international audience. Secondly, I was apt to compare it with the Assessment pack (2) produced by the LTSN Generic Centre- now the Higher Education Academy. Although this latter comprises separate booklets on individual topics rather than a comprehensive book, I do find its pithier style more accessible and I am sorry that neither it nor any of the individual booklets appears to get a mention in Linda Suskie's opus.

Whilst there were probably other infelicities that I did not notice, the incorrect chapter headings throughout chapter 8 niggled away at me - I would have hoped that the publisher could afford to employ a decent proof reader! But enough of the carping, there is plenty in this book that is praiseworthy. Overall, I found it a very helpful addition to the canon but I think that a slimmed-down version would have been more useful in practice.

References

1- Biggs J (2nd edition 2003) Teaching for Quality Learning at University. Buckingham, Open University Press
2- This comprises a set of 16 booklets covering a wide variety of aspects of assessment, downloadable from http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources.asp