Developing assessment for informing judgement

At the start of this book, we proposed that a new discourse of assessment in higher education is required and that it should focus on the key organising idea of informing judgement. We suggested that there is a need for a way of discussing assessment that draws attention to its educational features rather than its regulatory ones. The notion of informing judgement is not just a rhetorical intervention into debates about teaching, learning and assessment but an idea that aims to change current assessment practice to give a sharper educational focus. However, it is not sufficient to focus on the ways we talk about assessment alone. New sets of practices and ways of organising assessment need to be developed in order to enact this way of thinking. The kinds of assessment activity in which staff and students engage will need to shift in emphasis.