assessment of course work

Course Assessment

Course-level assessment is a process of systematically examining and refining the fit between the course activities and what students should know at the end of the course.

Conducting a course-level assessment involves considering whether all aspects of the course align with each other and whether they guide students to achieve the desired learning outcomes.

“Assessment” refers to a variety of processes for gathering, analyzing, and using information about student learning to support instructional decision-making, with the goal of improving student learning. Most instructors already engage in assessment processes all the time, ranging from informal (“hmm, there are many confused faces right now- I should stop for questions”) to formal (“nearly half the class got this quiz question wrong- I should revisit this concept”).

When approached in a formalized way, course-level assessment is a process of systematically examining and refining the fit between the course activities and what students should know at the end of the course. Conducting a course-level assessment involves considering whether all aspects of the course align with each other and whether they guide students to achieve the desired learning outcomes . Course-level assessment can be a practical process embedded within course design and teaching, that provides substantial benefits to instructors and students.

Over time, as the process is followed iteratively over several semesters, it can help instructors find a variety of pathways to designing more equitable courses in which more learners develop greater expertise in the skills and knowledge of greatest importance to the discipline or topic of the course.

Differentiating Grading from Assessment

“Assessment” is sometimes used colloquially to mean “grading,” but there are distinctions between the two. Grading is a process of evaluating individual student learning for the purposes of characterizing that student’s level of success at a particular task (or the entire course). The grade of an assignment may provide feedback to students on which concepts or skills they have mastered, which can guide them to revise their study approach, but may not be used by the instructor to decide how subsequent class sessions will be spent. Similarly, a student’s grade in a course might convey to other instructors in the curriculum or prospective employers the level of mastery that the student has demonstrated during that semester, but need not suggest changes to the design of the course as a whole for future iterations.

In contrast to grading, assessment practices focus on determining how many students achieved which learning course outcomes, and to what level of mastery, for the purpose of helping the instructor revise subsequent lessons or the course as a whole for subsequent terms. Since final course grades may include participation points, and aggregate student mastery of all course learning objectives into a single measure, they rarely give clarity on what elements of the course have been most or least successful in achieving the instructor’s goals. Differentiating assessment from grading allows instructors to plot a clear course forward toward making the changes that will have the greatest impact in the areas they define as being most important, based on the results of the assessment.

Course learning outcomes are measurable statements that describe what students should be able to do by the end of a course . Let’s parse this statement into its three component parts: student-centered, measurable, and course-level.

Student-Centered

First, learning outcomes should focus on what students will be able to do, not what the course will do. For example:

• “Introduces the fundamental ideas of computing and the principles of programming” says what a course is intended to accomplish. This is perfectly appropriate for a course description but is not a learning outcome.
• A related student learning outcome might read, “ Explain the fundamental ideas of computing and identify the principles of programming.”

Second, learning outcomes are measurable , which means that you can observe the student performing the skill or task and determine the degree to which they have done so. This does not need to be measured in quantitative terms—student learning can be observed in the characteristics of presentations, essays, projects, and many other student products created in a course (discussed more in the section on rubrics below).

To be measurable, learning outcomes should not include words like understand , learn , and appreciate , because these qualities occur within the student’s mind and are not observable. Rather, ask yourself, “What would a student be doing if they understand, have learned, or appreciate?” For example:

• “Learners should understand US political ideologies regarding social and environmental issues,” is not observable.
• “Learners should be able to compare and contrast U.S. political ideologies regarding social and environmental issues,” is observable.

Course-Level

Finally, learning outcomes for course-level assessment focus on the knowledge and skills that learners will take away from a course as a whole. Though the final project, essay, or other assessment that will be used to measure student learning may match the outcome well, the learning outcome should articulate the overarching takeaway from the course, rather than describing the assignment. For example:

• “Identify learning principles and theories in real-world situations” is a learning outcome that describes skills learners will use beyond the course.
• “Develop a case study in which you document a learner in a real-world setting” describes a course assignment aligned with that outcome but is not a learning outcome itself.

Identify and Prioritize Your Higher-Order End Goals

Course-level learning outcomes articulate the big-picture takeaways of the course, providing context and purpose for day-to-day learning. To keep the workload of course assessment manageable, focus on no more than 5-10 learning outcomes per course (McCourt, 2007). This limit is helpful because each of these course-level learning objectives will be carefully assessed at the end of the term and used to guide iterative revision of the course in future semesters.

This is not meant to suggest that students will only learn 5-10 skills or concepts during the term. Multiple shorter-term and lower-level learning objectives are very helpful to guide student learning at the unit, week, or even class session scale (Felder & Brent, 2016). These shorter-term objectives build toward or serve as components of the course-level objectives.

Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001) is a helpful tool for deciding which of your objectives are course-level, which may be unit-to class-level objectives, and how they fit together. This taxonomy organizes action verbs by complexity of thinking, resulting in the following categories:

Download a list of sample learning outcomes from a variety of disciplines .

Typically, objectives at the higher end of the spectrum (“analyzing,” “evaluating,” or “creating”) are ideal course-level learning outcomes, while those at the lower end of the spectrum (“remembering,” “understanding,” or “applying”) are component parts and day, week, or unit-level outcomes. Lower-level outcomes that do not contribute substantially to students’ ability to achieve the higher-level objectives may fit better in a different course in the curriculum.

Consider Involving Your Learners

Depending on the course and the flexibility of the course structure and/or progression, some educators spend the first day of the course working with learners to craft or edit learning outcomes together. This practice of giving learners an informed voice may lead to increased motivation and ownership of learning.

Alignment, where all components work together to bolster specific student learning outcomes, occurs at multiple levels. At the course level, assignments or activities within the course are aligned with the daily or unit-level learning outcomes, which in turn are aligned with the course-level objectives. At the next level, the learning outcomes of each course in a curriculum contribute directly and strategically to programmatic learning outcomes.

Alignment Within the Course

Since learning outcomes are statements about key learning takeaways, they can be used to focus the assignments, activities, and content of the course (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005). Biggs & Tang (2011) note that, “In a constructively aligned system, all components… support each other, so the learner is enveloped within a supportive learning system.”

For example, for the learning outcome, “learners should be able to collaborate effectively on a team to create a marketing campaign for a product,” the course should: (1) intentionally teach learners effective ways to collaborate on a team and how to create a marketing campaign; (2) include activities that allow learners to practice and progress in their skillsets for collaboration and creation of marketing campaigns; and (3) have assessments that provide feedback to the learners on the extent that they are meeting these learning outcomes.

Alignment With Program

When developing your course learning outcomes, consider how the course contributes to your program’s mission/goals (especially if such decisions have not already been made at the programmatic level). If course learning outcomes are set at the programmatic level, familiarize yourself with possible program sequences to understand the knowledge and skills learners are bringing into your course and the level and type of mastery they may need for future courses and experiences. Explicitly sharing your understanding of this alignment with learners may help motivate them and provide more context, significance, and/or impact for their learning (Cuevas, Matveevm, & Miller, 2010).

If relevant, you will also want to ensure that a course with NUpath attributes addresses the associated outcomes . Similarly, for undergraduate or graduate courses that meet requirements set by external evaluators specific to the discipline or field, reviewing and assessing these outcomes is often a requirement for continuing accreditation.

See our program-level assessment guide for more information.

Transparency

Sharing course learning outcomes with learners makes the benchmarks for learning explicit and helps learners make connections across different elements within the course (Cuevas & Mativeev, 2010). Consider including course learning outcomes in your syllabus , so learners know what is expected of them by the end of a course and can refer to the outcomes as the term progresses. When educators refer to learning outcomes during the course before introducing new concepts or assignments, learners receive the message that the outcomes are important and are more likely to see the connections between the outcomes and course activities.

Formative Assessment

Formative assessment practices are brief, often low-stakes (minimal grade value) assignments administered during the semester to give the instructor insight into student progress toward one or more course-level learning objectives (or the day-to unit-level objectives that stair-step toward the course objectives). Common formative assessment techniques include classroom discussions , just-in-time quizzes or polls , concept maps , and informal writing techniques like minute papers or “muddiest points,” among many others (Angelo & Cross, 1993).

Refining Alignment During the Semester

While it requires a bit of flexibility built into the syllabus, student-centered courses often use the results of formative assessments in real time to revise upcoming learning activities. If students are struggling with a particular outcome, extra time might be devoted to related practice. Alternatively, if students demonstrate accomplishment of a particular outcome early in the related unit, the instructor might choose to skip activities planned to teach that outcome and jump ahead to activities related to an outcome that builds upon the first one.

Supporting Student Motivation and Engagement

Formative assessment and subsequent refinements to alignment that support student learning can be transformative for student motivation and engagement in the course, with the greatest benefits likely for novices and students worried about their ability to successfully accomplish the course outcomes, such as those impacted by stereotype threat (Steele, 2010). Take the example below, in which an instructor who sees that students are struggling decides to dedicate more time and learning activities to that outcome. If that instructor were to instead move on to instruction and activities that built upon the prior learning objective, students who did not reach the prior objective would become increasingly lost, likely recognize that their efforts at learning the new content or skill were not helping them succeed, and potentially disengage from the course as a whole.

Artifacts for Summative Assessment

To determine the degree to which students have accomplished the course learning outcomes, instructors often assign some form of project , essay, presentation, portfolio, renewable assignment , or other cumulative final. The final product of these activities could serve as the “artifact” that is assessed. In this context, alignment is particularly critical—if this assignment does not adequately guide students to demonstrate their achievement of the learning outcomes, the instructor will not have concrete information to guide course design for future semesters. To keep assessment manageable, aim to design a single final assignment that create the space for students to demonstrate their performance on multiple (if not all) course learning outcomes.

Since not all courses are designed with a final assignment that allows students to demonstrate their highest level of achievement of all course learning outcomes, the assessment processes could use the course assignment that represents the highest level of achievement that students had an opportunity to demonstrate during the term. However, some learning objectives that do not come into play during the final may be better categorized as unit-level, rather than course-level, objectives.

Direct vs. Indirect Measures of Student Learning

Some instructors also use surveys, interviews, or other methods that ask learners whether and how they believe they have achieved the learning outcomes. This type of “indirect evidence” can provide valuable information about how learners understand their progress but does not directly measure students’ learning. In fact, novices commonly have difficulty accurately evaluating their own learning (Ambrose et al., 2010). For this reason, indirect evidence of student learning (on its own) is not considered sufficient for summative assessment.

Together, direct and indirect evidence of student learning can help an instructor determine whether to bolster student practice in certain areas or whether to simply focus on increasing transparency about when students are working toward which learning outcome.

Creating and Assessing Student Work with Analytic Rubrics

One tool for assessing student work is analytic rubrics (shown below) which are matrices of characteristics and descriptions of what it might look like for student products to demonstrate these characteristics at different levels of mastery. Analytic rubrics are commonly recommended for assessment purposes, since they provide more detailed feedback to guide course design in more meaningful ways than holistic rubrics. Pre-existing analytic rubrics such as the AAC&U VALUE Rubrics can be tailored to fit your course or program, or you can develop an outcome-specific rubric yourself (Moskal, 2000 is a useful reference, or contact CATLR for a one-on-one consultation). The process of refining a rubric often involves multiple iterations of applying the rubric to student work and identifying the ways in which it captures or does not capture the characteristics representing the outcome.

Summative assessment results can inform changes to any of the course components for subsequent terms. If students have underperformed on a particular course learning objective, the instructor might choose to revise the related assignments or provide additional practice opportunities related to that objective, and formative assessments might be revised or implemented to test whether those new learning activities are producing better results. If the final assessment does not provide sufficient information about student performance on a certain outcome, the instructor might revise the assessment guidelines or even implement a different assessment that is more aligned to the outcome. Finally, if an instructor notices during the assessment process that an important outcome has not been articulated, or would be more clearly stated a different way, that instructor might revise the objectives themselves.

For assistance at any stage of the course assessment cycle, contact CATLR for a one-on-one or group consultation.

Ambrose, S. A., Bridges, M. W., DiPietro, M., Lovett, M. C., & Norman, M. K. (2010).  How learning works: Seven research-based principles for smart teaching . San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons.

Anderson, L. W., & Krathwohl, D. R. (2001).  A taxonomy for learning, teaching and assessing: A revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives . New York, NY: Longman.

Bembenutty, H. (2011). Self-regulation of learning in postsecondary education.  New Directions for Teaching and Learning ,  126 , 3-8. doi: 10.1002/tl.439

Biggs, J., & Tang, C. (2011).  Teaching for Quality Learning at University . Maidenhead, England: Society for Research into Higher Education & Open University Press.

Cauley, K. M., & McMillan, J. H. (2010). Formative assessment techniques to support student motivation and achievement.  The Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas ,  83 (1), 1-6. doi: 10.1080/00098650903267784

Cuevas, N. M., Matveev, A. G., & Miller, K. O. (2010). Mapping general education outcomes in the major: Intentionality and transparency.  Peer Review ,  12 (1), 10-15.

Felder, R. M., & Brent, R. (2016).  Teaching and learning STEM: A practical guide . San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons.

Krathwohl, D. R. (2002). A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy: An overview.  Theory into practice ,  41 (4), 212-218. doi:  10.1207/s15430421tip4104_2

McCourt, Millis, B. J., (2007).  Writing and Assessing Course-Level Student Learning Outcomes . Office of Planning and Assessment at the Texas Tech University.

Moskal, B. M. (2000). Scoring rubrics: What, when and how?  Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation ,  7 (3).

Setting Learning Outcomes . (2012). Center for Teaching Excellence at Cornell University. Retrieved from  https://teaching.cornell.edu/teaching-resources/designing-your-course/setting-learning-outcomes .

Steele, C. M. (2010).  Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do . New York, NY: WW Norton & Company, Inc.

Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2005).  Understanding by Design (Expanded) . Alexandria, US: Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development (ASCD).

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Course Evaluations and End-term Student Feedback

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At Stanford, student course feedback can provide insight into what is working well and suggest ways to develop your teaching strategies and promote student learning, particularly in relation to the specific learning goals you are working to achieve.

There are many ways to assess the effectiveness of teaching and courses , including feedback from students, input from colleagues, and self-reflection. No single method of evaluation offers a complete view. This page describes the end-term student feedback survey and offers recommendations for managing it. 

End-term student feedback

The end-term student feedback survey, often referred to as the “course evaluations”, opens in the last week of instruction each quarter for two weeks:

• Course evaluations are anonymous and run online
• Results are delivered to instructors after final grades are posted
• The minimum course enrollment for evaluations is three students

Two feedback forms

Students provide feedback on their courses using up to two forms:

• The course feedback form gathers feedback on students' experience of the course, covering general questions about learning and course organization, and potentially specific learning goals, course elements, and other instructor-designed questions. At Stanford, this form focuses on the course as a whole and not the performance of individual instructors. Students complete one form for each course, even in a team-teaching situation where there could be several instructors.
• The section feedback form gathers feedback on the TAs or CAs students interact with, usually through sections such as discussions and labs. Even if TAs and CAs do not lead individual sections—for example, they take office hours or assist during labs—they can still receive feedback using this form.

Course evaluation system

The current course evaluation platform is EvaluationKIT, accessible to instructors at evaluationkit.stanford.edu .

End-term course evaluations and EvaluationKIT are managed by Evaluations and Research, part of Learning Technologies and Spaces (LTS) within Student Affairs . You can find comprehensive information about end-term course evaluations on the Evaluations and Research website.

Tailored custom questions

The course and section forms are customizable , allowing you to add specific questions, such as learning goals, course elements (such as textbooks), and even questions of your own, so that you can gather targeted feedback on aspects of your course design.

Although you are not required to customize your questions, it is an excellent way to gather information on any aspect of the course that you want to assess, such as a new teaching technique, an activity, or an approach you want to revise. If you do not customize, your students will still respond to the standard questions.

Managing your end-term feedback

Whether you are new to Stanford or familiar with the course evaluations system, these are the most useful links to managing your evaluations every quarter:

• Key dates : review the key dates for customization, opening and closing of the evaluations, and reports.
• Customization is open for four weeks each quarter, starting in Week 4, so you can add your own questions to the course and section forms.
• Interpreting your reports : Reading and interpreting feedback effectively will help you to assess what is working and identify areas where your course may need to make adjustments.
• The Evaluations and Research website has many resources to help you find, read, and interpret evaluation reports, as well as understand the scope and limitations of teaching evaluations.

Need help understanding or responding to course evaluations?

The Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) has trained and experienced teaching consultants who can help you interpret results and advise on teaching strategies. Contact CTL to request a consultation at any time.

Further sources of evaluation and feedback

There are many other sources of feedback that can help inform your teaching and learning decisions, including:

• Mid-term student feedback is an excellent way to gather actionable insights into a course while the course is still in progress and it is possible to make adjustments, if necessary, before the end of the quarter.   Consider a Small Group Feedback Session offered by CTL or an in-class survey .
• Input from colleagues , such as peer observations, particularly when including a review of materials and course goals, and using a consistent review protocol. Peer review can include online materials, modules, and courses using criteria similar to those for in-class instruction.
• Instructor’s self-reflection , including evaluation of course materials, such as syllabi, assignments, exams, papers, and so on. 
• Other contributions, such as those to curriculum development, supervision of student research, mentoring of other instructors, creation of instructional materials, and published research on teaching, can be assessed by colleagues and also form part of a general teaching portfolio.

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Course Assessment

Over the past two decades, colleges and universities across the United States have faced increased demands to show evidence that students are meeting appropriate educational goals.  Designing and implementing assessments at the course level is quite instrumental in ensuring that students are not just learning the material, but also providing important information to instructors on the extent of the progress students are making in attaining the intended learning outcomes of the course. A formal process of assessing a course can help instructors effectively facilitate student learning by:

• Promoting a clearer and better comprehension of course expectations for their work and how the quality of their work will be evaluated.
• Ensuring clarity regarding teaching goals and what students are expected to learn.
• Cultivating student engagement in their own learning.
• Fostering effective communication and feedback with students.
• Providing increased information about student learning in the classroom, leading to adjustments in pedagogical styles as the course progresses.

Assessment at the course level addresses the following critical questions:

• What  do you want students to  know  and  do  upon completion of your course?
• And  how  will you know if they get there?

These questions provide an excellent opportunity for classroom assessment process to directly address concerns about better learning and effective teaching. Below is a simple process of instructors can use to developing a course assessment plan:

Remote/Online Assessment Techniques

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has led to huge challenges regarding the teaching and assessment of student learning process in higher education.  As a result of this, the Office of Academic Assessment has developed and put together resources to assist faculty as they continue to develop and/or adopt assessment strategies appropriate for and applicable to the current online/remote teaching and learning.  As you continuously refine aspects of your course in the online environment, you may find the following best practices and answers to frequently asked questions relating to online assessment particularly helpful and useful. Please feel free to reach out to the Office of Academic Assessment for consultations to help provide insights regarding practical, classroom or course-level assessments appropriate for online or remote environment.

To Get Started

Given that during the Fall 2020 semester, most tests and examinations were delivered to students digitally, irrespective of course modality, and the same is expected to continue in spring 2021, we strongly encourage all faculty to plan assessments well in advance of scheduled delivery.  This will help ensure that online or remote assessment continues to not only be rigorous, but also appropriate and meaningful to the teaching and learning process. Below are useful questions to ask you may ask yourself:

• What do you expect students enrolled in your course to know and do upon completion of the course?  How can they demonstrate what they learned through your course?
• If you intend to use open-book for some of the online or remote assessments, do you have examples of questions you can ask students that target conceptual, application, or require them to demonstrate higher-order thinking?
• Can your students demonstrate understanding in a less traditional format such as a presentation, portfolio, or project?
• If you usually use multiple-choice questions, can you reduce the number of lower- questions and replace with items requiring students demonstrate critical thinking and problem-solving skills? Could questions be written so students need to show a practical application of what they've learned?

Helpful Insights to Consider

• Make your instructions and course expectations very clear to students. One way to do this is to embed details of your course assignments expectations in your syllabus.  For instance, do you allow your students to use notes or other outside materials? Can they collaborate? Are the assignments or exams timed? Communication is particularly important in an online/remote environment.
• Besides multiple-choice type assessments/exams, many alternative forms of assessments may require the use of rubrics to (1) help you determine the quality of student work, (2) allow your students see what you're looking for and, (3) make grading consistent and fair.
• Whenever possible, give your students an opportunity to engage in your desired forms of assessments prior to the most important and final exams, so this isn't the first time they're being asked to engage in a new assessment activity. Even if these practice opportunities are formative (i.e., ungraded), giving them the opportunity to practice and get feedback (from you, your TAs, or their peers) can help them be successful, particularly if prior assessments/assignments in your course were in different formats.
• There’s no doubt that students will be navigating unusual new schedules and conflicting priorities as everyone faces the ongoing COVID-19 challenges. Whenever possible, have the assessments/assignments available for them for multiple days as this will give them flexibility.

Best Practices/Options in Remote/Online Assessment

The tumult and uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic has greatly impacted the teaching and learning process across institutions of higher education.  This is particularly evident in assessment of student learning process, which continues to be challenging, especially in courses that were designed to be taught fully in-person or using the blended format. There are various practical and authentic assessment strategies and tools that can help faculty create or fine-tune assessment to better determine the degree to which students are learning in your class.  On this page, we chare several assessment options you may consider applying to your class in addition to using Quiz tools in Canvas.

Assessing Engagement and Interaction

Developing strategies for promoting student engagement online during the ongoing pandemic is difficult. However, there are ways to continue deeper learning and engagement despite these challenges such as maintaining constant communication, listening to and (where possible) accommodating student needs, creating a welcoming atmosphere, building strong relationships with students and, offering both synchronous and asynchronous learning opportunities as a means to ensuring equity.

Peer Assessment

Peer assessment (or “peer review”) is mostly used as a technique for students to assess their fellow students’ work. This typically involves students evaluating and providing feedback to their peers using a rubric or a set of assessment criteria. A well-designed peer assessment process can potentially lead to increase in student motivation and engagement, and help students in development of self-awareness, reflecting on the feedback and enhancing the quality of their own work.

• Creating Peer Assessments in Canvas

Repeated Low-Stakes Assessments

The remote teaching and learning process can be very beneficial if students are engaged and active. One of the strategies to accomplish this is to use brief, more regular assessments such as collaborative projects, weekly writing assignments, short problem sets or quizzes as they provide students a much better and firm foundational knowledge and practice with the planned course materials particularly at this time when high stakes assessments/examinations are not optimal. If you are considering to use low stakes assessments, ensure that objectives of the assessments/assignments are guided by your course student learning outcomes.

• How to use quizzes in Canvas
• Canvas quiz options to randomize questions
• Classroom Assessment Techniques offer a variety of simple but very effective and practical strategies for low-stakes formative assessments.

Student Research/Term Papers

Whether required for individual students or required as a group, research projects/term papers of a variety of lengths and complexity work well in a remote learning environment. Given that students develop research papers/projects throughout the semester, requiring them to submit portions of the project (e.g., the introduction and thesis, the literature review) at different times can be quite beneficial in ensuring quality of the project. In addition, grading each portion of the project separately using a rubric and providing feedback to students not only helps them refine aspects of the project, but also minimizes the possibility that students will be able to plagiarize work.

Course Assessment Tools in Canvas

In addition to the above recommendations, please take a look at the assessment resources available in Canvas as they may be very helpful as you develop or refine assessment plan for your course.

• Learning Outcomes : It is crucial to ensure that student learning outcomes (SLOs) in your course are directly aligned with assessments – this makes the design of the course more helpful and meaningful to students.
• Assignments : Assignments provide students excellent opportunities to demonstrate knowledge and skills/abilities learned in a course.
• Gradebook : understanding the Canvas Gradebook can be very helpful as you develop assessment plan for your course.
• Rubrics : using a well-designed rubric(s) can help you communicate clear expectations regarding assignments/projects in your course, evaluate the quality of student work/projects and manage your ability to provide useful feedback to students.

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Assessing Course Outcomes

Learning Objectives

At the end of this section, you should be able to:

• Describe why assessment is used for teaching & learning.
• Explain the difference between assessing traditional and open course materials.

Assessment is an integral part of the education process, a method used as a barometer for what changes may be necessary to improve teaching and learning. Assessment is not always a simple process, so it can help to get some support understanding key concepts.

Assessment in the Classroom

Assessment can occur at any time during or after a course. It is recommended that instructors assess their course regularly, but especially when incorporating new techniques or course materials for the first time. The National Research Council describes the assessment process as a constantly evolving enterprise:

“What is important is that assessment is an ongoing activity, one that relies on multiple strategies and sources for collecting information that bears on the quality of student work and that then can be used to help both the students and the teacher think more pointedly about how the quality might be improved.” [1]

One popular method of assessing a course is to investigate whether the learning outcomes you selected for the course have been met.

Learning Outcomes

Elhabashy defines Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) as

“the specific observable or measurable results that are expected subsequent to a learning experience. These outcomes may involve knowledge (cognitive), skills (behavioral), or attitudes (affective) that provide evidence that learning has occurred as a result of a specified course, program activity, or process.” [2]

These learning outcomes are used as benchmarks for assessing student learning and, by proxy, your own teaching. Perhaps the most important type of SLOs are Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs). CLOs are the final outcomes that an instructor expects their class to have gained once they leave a course. [3] These should be measurable items, outcomes for which you can create effective assessments.

Anytime you adjust your syllabus, course schedule, or learning materials, it can be helpful to consult your CLOs to ensure that the new structure you are making for your course is able to accommodate the needs of learners and facilitate the development of your learning outcomes.

CLO Example from Library 160: Information Literacy

After completing this course, students will:

• recognize how information creation, dissemination, and the research process can impact what is available on a given topic;
• recognize that information has value and identify how the information you produce is used online;
• appropriately relate information needs to search strategies, tools, and types of information sources, including recognizing and interpreting different types of citations;
• appropriately use the web for research, including critical evaluation of information;
• adhere to academic integrity policies, including those on plagiarism and copyright.

Course learning outcomes can be an invaluable part of the course transformation process for departments hoping to flip courses to open. As Tidewater Community College explained the process for their Z-degree pilot, in which a selection of courses taught at the university were transformed to use OER and other no-cost course materials:

“The faculty team began by stripping each of the 21 courses down to the course learning outcomes and rebuilding them, matching OER to each outcome… Courses were designed consistent with college’s academic and instructional design requirements, and were subjected to a strict copyright review.” [4]

Now that you have an overview of the types of goals you can set for your course, let’s move on to the processes available for assessing whether your students (and, by extension, your teaching) have met them.

Types of Assessment

The point of assessment is to ensure that learning objectives are being met and that your teaching is helping students develop the skills they ought to be achieving throughout your course. The assessment techniques you implement will depend on your preference and the standards in your field, but to help you get started, we’ve listed a few standard assessment types below:

• Formative Assessment : An ongoing process with a wide variety of formats, formative assessment can include quizzes, papers, projects, and any other formal or informal tests provided to gauge your students’ understanding of course content.
• Summative Assessment : The final assessment of student learning after a course has completed, summative assessment can include final papers, projects, or exams. Summative assessment should be used to assess both standard teaching procedures and the effectiveness of any changes made following the formative assessments provided throughout your course.
• Student Self-Assessment : Methods for allowing your students to rate their own confidence in their work and their understanding of course content; examples include writing discussion board posts, drafting exam questions, and filling out confidence rating scales on exams. [5]
• Student Peer-Assessment : The process by which students evaluate the work of their peers within a course, peer assessment is often used as a learning tool to help students reconsider their own understanding of course content as they evaluate the work of their peers. [6]
• Student Assessment of Teaching (SATs) : The manner in which students report on the effectiveness of an instructor’s teaching on their learning, often given at the end of a course but sometimes handled as an ongoing process. The most ubiquitous SATs are student surveys given at the end of a course.

For additional approaches to classroom assessment, the Iowa State University Center for Excellence in Learning & Teaching (CELT) has compiled a website listing quick assessment strategies .

After reviewing these more traditional assessment types, you might wonder how the assessment for a course using OER differs.

Assessment for OER

Assessment for courses utilizing OER does not have to be any different than for courses utilizing traditional materials. Nonetheless, some individuals have developed assessment techniques for the open classroom in particular. One of these is the RISE Framework.

The RISE Framework (Resource Inspection, Selection, and Enhancement) utilizes a 2 x 2 matrix of High Grade/Low Grade and High Use/Low Use to determine how much the use of OER has affected a student’s learning outcomes. [7] The RISE Framework is used to determine how well a student performed in a course and to contrast that outcome with how much they used their provided course materials. This method can help delineate between students who excel in a subject by default and those who have done well in a course thanks to the use of the provided course content. A package in R has been developed for running a RISE analysis quickly and easily. The RISE package for R  is openly available in Zenodo.

In the end, what assessment techniques you employ in your course will be determined by a variety of factors, some of which will be out of your control. Nonetheless, it’s important to understand why you’re assessing your course and the impact that assessment can have, particularly for courses changing their materials.

For more information about assessment in the classroom, visit the ISU Center for Excellence in Learning & Teaching’s Assessment & Evaluation website or talk to an instructional designer about your course. In the next chapter, we will transition to talk about how you can get involved in the development of OER.

• National Research Council. Classroom Assessment and the National Science Education Standards . Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2001. DOI: https://doi.org/10.17226/9847. ↵
• Elhabashy, Sameh. Formulate Consequential Student Learning Outcome s. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2017. ↵
• Elhabashy, Sameh. Formulate Consequential Student Learning Outcome s. ↵
• Wiley, David, et al. "The Tidewater Z-Degree and the INTRO Model for Sustaining OER Adoption." Education Policy Analysis Archives 23, no. 41 (2016). DOI: https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.24.1828 ↵
• Sorenson-Unruh, Clarissa. "Ungrading: The First Exam." Reflective Teaching Evolution . May 1, 2019. https://clarissasorensenunruh.com/2019/05/01/ungrading-the-first-exam-part-3/ ↵
• Stanford Teaching Commons. "Peer Assessment." Accessed July 1, 2019. https://teachingcommons.stanford.edu/resources/teaching/evaluating-students/assessing-student-learning/peer-assessment ↵
• Bodily, Robert, Nyland, Rob, and Wiley, David. "The RISE Framework: Using Learning Analytics to Automatically Identify Open Educational Resources for Continuous Improvement." International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning 18, no. 2 (2017). DOI: https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v18i2.2952 ↵

The outcomes that an instructor expects their students to display at the end of a learning experience (an activity, process, or course). (Source: Elhabashy, 2017).

The final outcomes that an instructor expects their students to gain by the time the students complete a course.

The OER Starter Kit Copyright © 2019 by Abbey K. Elder is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning

• Teaching and Learning Assessment Overview

Assessment methods are designed to measure selected learning outcomes to see whether or not the objectives have been met for the course. Assessment involves the use of empirical data on student learning to refine programs and improve student learning (Assessing Academic Programs in Higher Education by Allen 2004). As you design an assessment plan, be sure to align it to your student-learning objectives and outcomes for the course.

The appropriate assessment method depends on numerous variables, including the learning objective to be measured, the intent of the assessment, the timing of the assessment, and the classroom setting.

A Typology of Assessments

(Assessing Student Learning: A common sense guide by Suskie 2004 and Assessing for Learning: Building a sustainable commitment across the institution by Maki 2004)

Angelo and Cross developed a list of 50 classroom assessment techniques (CAT) that you might consider but not every CAT is appropriate for every situation so faculty should weigh the pro's and con's.pdf and choose the right assessment tool.pdf.

• Assess at the start of the course. By knowing the students’ level of knowledge prior to the course or unit, you can tailor your teaching to better meet their needs.
• Assess student learning often. Rather than only assessing learning at the end of units, assess how well the students are learning at intermediate points as well.
• Multiple choice exams allow for easy testing of large groups of students but are often not the best choice. In situations where multiple choice is the best option, please see these tips for designing multiple choice questions .

Angelo, T.A. & Cross, K.P. (1993). Classroom assessment techniques: a handbook for college teachers (2 nd ed) . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Barkley, E.F., Major, C.H., & Cross, K.P. (2014). Classroom assessment techniques (2 nd ed) . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Bull, B. (2014) 10 Assessment Design Tips for Increasing Online Student Retention, Satisfaction and Learning ( http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/online-education/10-assessment-design-tips-increasing-retention-satisfaction-student-learning-online-courses/?campaign=FF140203article#sthash.GAYkXAMH.dpuf )

Maki, P. L. "Beginning with dialogue about teaching and learning." Maki, PL, Assessing for learning: Building a sustainable commitment across the institution, Sterling, VA: Stylus/AAHE (2004): 31-57. Suskie, Linda. "Assessing student learning: A common sense guide. Bolton, MA." (2004).

20-Minute Mentor Tips

Through our institution subscription to 20-Minute Mentor you have countless teaching tip videos available at the click of a button. Here are a few related to this topic:

• How can I use classroom assessment techniques (CATs) online?
• How can I make my multiple choice tests more effective?
• How can I make my exams more accessible?

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For more information, or for a consultation about your course, please contact Faculty Development at CETL. We can help you identify assessment tools that align with your course objectives, and help you determine how best to combine assessments using a variety of approaches across in-person, remote, synchronous, and asynchronous modes. Email us at [email protected] and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

Quick Links

• Aligning to Course Objectives
• Alternative Authentic Assessment Methods
• Formative and Summative Assessment
• Developing Multiple Choice Questions
• Assessment as Feedback
• Quick Tips for Designing Assessments
• Bias and Exclusion in Assessment 
• ChatGPT AI impact on Teaching and Learning
• 50 Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATS)

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Center for Teaching

Student assessment in teaching and learning.

Much scholarship has focused on the importance of student assessment in teaching and learning in higher education. Student assessment is a critical aspect of the teaching and learning process. Whether teaching at the undergraduate or graduate level, it is important for instructors to strategically evaluate the effectiveness of their teaching by measuring the extent to which students in the classroom are learning the course material.

This teaching guide addresses the following: 1) defines student assessment and why it is important, 2) identifies the forms and purposes of student assessment in the teaching and learning process, 3) discusses methods in student assessment, and 4) makes an important distinction between assessment and grading., what is student assessment and why is it important.

In their handbook for course-based review and assessment, Martha L. A. Stassen et al. define assessment as “the systematic collection and analysis of information to improve student learning.” (Stassen et al., 2001, pg. 5) This definition captures the essential task of student assessment in the teaching and learning process. Student assessment enables instructors to measure the effectiveness of their teaching by linking student performance to specific learning objectives. As a result, teachers are able to institutionalize effective teaching choices and revise ineffective ones in their pedagogy.

The measurement of student learning through assessment is important because it provides useful feedback to both instructors and students about the extent to which students are successfully meeting course learning objectives. In their book Understanding by Design , Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe offer a framework for classroom instruction—what they call “Backward Design”—that emphasizes the critical role of assessment. For Wiggens and McTighe, assessment enables instructors to determine the metrics of measurement for student understanding of and proficiency in course learning objectives. They argue that assessment provides the evidence needed to document and validate that meaningful learning has occurred in the classroom. Assessment is so vital in their pedagogical design that their approach “encourages teachers and curriculum planners to first ‘think like an assessor’ before designing specific units and lessons, and thus to consider up front how they will determine if students have attained the desired understandings.” (Wiggins and McTighe, 2005, pg. 18)

For more on Wiggins and McTighe’s “Backward Design” model, see our Understanding by Design teaching guide.

Student assessment also buttresses critical reflective teaching. Stephen Brookfield, in Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher, contends that critical reflection on one’s teaching is an essential part of developing as an educator and enhancing the learning experience of students. Critical reflection on one’s teaching has a multitude of benefits for instructors, including the development of rationale for teaching practices. According to Brookfield, “A critically reflective teacher is much better placed to communicate to colleagues and students (as well as to herself) the rationale behind her practice. She works from a position of informed commitment.” (Brookfield, 1995, pg. 17) Student assessment, then, not only enables teachers to measure the effectiveness of their teaching, but is also useful in developing the rationale for pedagogical choices in the classroom.

Forms and Purposes of Student Assessment

There are generally two forms of student assessment that are most frequently discussed in the scholarship of teaching and learning. The first, summative assessment , is assessment that is implemented at the end of the course of study. Its primary purpose is to produce a measure that “sums up” student learning. Summative assessment is comprehensive in nature and is fundamentally concerned with learning outcomes. While summative assessment is often useful to provide information about patterns of student achievement, it does so without providing the opportunity for students to reflect on and demonstrate growth in identified areas for improvement and does not provide an avenue for the instructor to modify teaching strategy during the teaching and learning process. (Maki, 2002) Examples of summative assessment include comprehensive final exams or papers.

The second form, formative assessment , involves the evaluation of student learning over the course of time. Its fundamental purpose is to estimate students’ level of achievement in order to enhance student learning during the learning process. By interpreting students’ performance through formative assessment and sharing the results with them, instructors help students to “understand their strengths and weaknesses and to reflect on how they need to improve over the course of their remaining studies.” (Maki, 2002, pg. 11) Pat Hutchings refers to this form of assessment as assessment behind outcomes. She states, “the promise of assessment—mandated or otherwise—is improved student learning, and improvement requires attention not only to final results but also to how results occur. Assessment behind outcomes means looking more carefully at the process and conditions that lead to the learning we care about…” (Hutchings, 1992, pg. 6, original emphasis). Formative assessment includes course work—where students receive feedback that identifies strengths, weaknesses, and other things to keep in mind for future assignments—discussions between instructors and students, and end-of-unit examinations that provide an opportunity for students to identify important areas for necessary growth and development for themselves. (Brown and Knight, 1994)

It is important to recognize that both summative and formative assessment indicate the purpose of assessment, not the method . Different methods of assessment (discussed in the next section) can either be summative or formative in orientation depending on how the instructor implements them. Sally Brown and Peter Knight in their book, Assessing Learners in Higher Education, caution against a conflation of the purposes of assessment its method. “Often the mistake is made of assuming that it is the method which is summative or formative, and not the purpose. This, we suggest, is a serious mistake because it turns the assessor’s attention away from the crucial issue of feedback.” (Brown and Knight, 1994, pg. 17) If an instructor believes that a particular method is formative, he or she may fall into the trap of using the method without taking the requisite time to review the implications of the feedback with students. In such cases, the method in question effectively functions as a form of summative assessment despite the instructor’s intentions. (Brown and Knight, 1994) Indeed, feedback and discussion is the critical factor that distinguishes between formative and summative assessment.

Methods in Student Assessment

Below are a few common methods of assessment identified by Brown and Knight that can be implemented in the classroom. [1] It should be noted that these methods work best when learning objectives have been identified, shared, and clearly articulated to students.

Self-Assessment

The goal of implementing self-assessment in a course is to enable students to develop their own judgement. In self-assessment students are expected to assess both process and product of their learning. While the assessment of the product is often the task of the instructor, implementing student assessment in the classroom encourages students to evaluate their own work as well as the process that led them to the final outcome. Moreover, self-assessment facilitates a sense of ownership of one’s learning and can lead to greater investment by the student. It enables students to develop transferable skills in other areas of learning that involve group projects and teamwork, critical thinking and problem-solving, as well as leadership roles in the teaching and learning process.

Things to Keep in Mind about Self-Assessment

• Self-assessment is different from self-grading. According to Brown and Knight, “Self-assessment involves the use of evaluative processes in which judgement is involved, where self-grading is the marking of one’s own work against a set of criteria and potential outcomes provided by a third person, usually the [instructor].” (Pg. 52)
• Students may initially resist attempts to involve them in the assessment process. This is usually due to insecurities or lack of confidence in their ability to objectively evaluate their own work. Brown and Knight note, however, that when students are asked to evaluate their work, frequently student-determined outcomes are very similar to those of instructors, particularly when the criteria and expectations have been made explicit in advance.
• Methods of self-assessment vary widely and can be as eclectic as the instructor. Common forms of self-assessment include the portfolio, reflection logs, instructor-student interviews, learner diaries and dialog journals, and the like.

Peer Assessment

Peer assessment is a type of collaborative learning technique where students evaluate the work of their peers and have their own evaluated by peers. This dimension of assessment is significantly grounded in theoretical approaches to active learning and adult learning . Like self-assessment, peer assessment gives learners ownership of learning and focuses on the process of learning as students are able to “share with one another the experiences that they have undertaken.” (Brown and Knight, 1994, pg. 52)

Things to Keep in Mind about Peer Assessment

• Students can use peer assessment as a tactic of antagonism or conflict with other students by giving unmerited low evaluations. Conversely, students can also provide overly favorable evaluations of their friends.
• Students can occasionally apply unsophisticated judgements to their peers. For example, students who are boisterous and loquacious may receive higher grades than those who are quieter, reserved, and shy.
• Instructors should implement systems of evaluation in order to ensure valid peer assessment is based on evidence and identifiable criteria .  

According to Euan S. Henderson, essays make two important contributions to learning and assessment: the development of skills and the cultivation of a learning style. (Henderson, 1980) Essays are a common form of writing assignment in courses and can be either a summative or formative form of assessment depending on how the instructor utilizes them in the classroom.

Things to Keep in Mind about Essays

• A common challenge of the essay is that students can use them simply to regurgitate rather than analyze and synthesize information to make arguments.
• Instructors commonly assume that students know how to write essays and can encounter disappointment or frustration when they discover that this is not the case for some students. For this reason, it is important for instructors to make their expectations clear and be prepared to assist or expose students to resources that will enhance their writing skills.

Exams and time-constrained, individual assessment

Examinations have traditionally been viewed as a gold standard of assessment in education, particularly in university settings. Like essays they can be summative or formative forms of assessment.

Things to Keep in Mind about Exams

• Exams can make significant demands on students’ factual knowledge and can have the side-effect of encouraging cramming and surface learning. On the other hand, they can also facilitate student demonstration of deep learning if essay questions or topics are appropriately selected. Different formats include in-class tests, open-book, take-home exams and the like.
• In the process of designing an exam, instructors should consider the following questions. What are the learning objectives that the exam seeks to evaluate? Have students been adequately prepared to meet exam expectations? What are the skills and abilities that students need to do well? How will this exam be utilized to enhance the student learning process?

As Brown and Knight assert, utilizing multiple methods of assessment, including more than one assessor, improves the reliability of data. However, a primary challenge to the multiple methods approach is how to weigh the scores produced by multiple methods of assessment. When particular methods produce higher range of marks than others, instructors can potentially misinterpret their assessment of overall student performance. When multiple methods produce different messages about the same student, instructors should be mindful that the methods are likely assessing different forms of achievement. (Brown and Knight, 1994).

For additional methods of assessment not listed here, see “Assessment on the Page” and “Assessment Off the Page” in Assessing Learners in Higher Education .

In addition to the various methods of assessment listed above, classroom assessment techniques also provide a useful way to evaluate student understanding of course material in the teaching and learning process. For more on these, see our Classroom Assessment Techniques teaching guide.

Assessment is More than Grading

Instructors often conflate assessment with grading. This is a mistake. It must be understood that student assessment is more than just grading. Remember that assessment links student performance to specific learning objectives in order to provide useful information to instructors and students about student achievement. Traditional grading on the other hand, according to Stassen et al. does not provide the level of detailed and specific information essential to link student performance with improvement. “Because grades don’t tell you about student performance on individual (or specific) learning goals or outcomes, they provide little information on the overall success of your course in helping students to attain the specific and distinct learning objectives of interest.” (Stassen et al., 2001, pg. 6) Instructors, therefore, must always remember that grading is an aspect of student assessment but does not constitute its totality.

Teaching Guides Related to Student Assessment

Below is a list of other CFT teaching guides that supplement this one. They include:

• Active Learning
• An Introduction to Lecturing
• Beyond the Essay: Making Student Thinking Visible in the Humanities
• Bloom’s Taxonomy
• How People Learn
• Syllabus Construction

References and Additional Resources

This teaching guide draws upon a number of resources listed below. These sources should prove useful for instructors seeking to enhance their pedagogy and effectiveness as teachers.

Angelo, Thomas A., and K. Patricia Cross. Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers . 2 nd edition. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993. Print.

Brookfield, Stephen D. Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1995. Print.

Brown, Sally, and Peter Knight. Assessing Learners in Higher Education . 1 edition. London ; Philadelphia: Routledge, 1998. Print.

Cameron, Jeanne et al. “Assessment as Critical Praxis: A Community College Experience.” Teaching Sociology 30.4 (2002): 414–429. JSTOR . Web.

Gibbs, Graham and Claire Simpson. “Conditions under which Assessment Supports Student Learning. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education 1 (2004): 3-31.

Henderson, Euan S. “The Essay in Continuous Assessment.” Studies in Higher Education 5.2 (1980): 197–203. Taylor and Francis+NEJM . Web.

Maki, Peggy L. “Developing an Assessment Plan to Learn about Student Learning.” The Journal of Academic Librarianship 28.1 (2002): 8–13. ScienceDirect . Web. The Journal of Academic Librarianship.

Sharkey, Stephen, and William S. Johnson. Assessing Undergraduate Learning in Sociology . ASA Teaching Resource Center, 1992. Print.

Wiggins, Grant, and Jay McTighe. Understanding By Design . 2nd Expanded edition. Alexandria, VA: Assn. for Supervision & Curriculum Development, 2005. Print.

[1] Brown and Night discuss the first two in their chapter entitled “Dimensions of Assessment.” However, because this chapter begins the second part of the book that outlines assessment methods, I have collapsed the two under the category of methods for the purposes of continuity.

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Center for the Enhancement of Teaching & Learning

Course Assessment Toolkit

This toolkit provides resources to help instructors create measurable learning outcomes and develop classroom assessments to track student learning.

• Teaching Toolkits
• Course Assessment Toolbox

Course-level assessment is a process of systematically examining and refining the fit between the course activities and what students should know at the end of the course. It involves both formative and summative assessment of student learning. The most effective course assessment is done throughout the semester, provides opportunities for low-stakes, formative assessment, and is based in authentic demonstrations of a students' learning. The key to effective course assessment is establishing course learning outcomes and developing course assessments that will provide evidence of achievement  (Angelo & Cross, 1993).

This toolkit provides help with developing course learning outcomes and thinking through the type of assessment you want to conduct and how to develop effective assessments.

How do I develop course learning outcomes?

Developing course learning outcomes comes down to thinking through the big ideas you want students to learn from your course. It's important to think about the essential knowledge, skills, and dispositions you want students to leave class with and be able to use later. It is also important to think about what knowledge and skills students need in the next course in your program to ensure their continued success in the major.

For a detailed process to develop course learning outcomes download the Developing Course-Level Student Learning Outcomes Workbook.

What kind of assessment should you conduct in class?

There are two types of assessment - formative and summative. Formative assessment is done early and often in a course to track student learning over time. Formative assessments are low-stakes assessments that won't harm a student's grade but will keep them engaged in course content. They help students identify strengths and areas for improvement in their own learning while also providing faculty with information about how students are grasping content, allowing instructors to adjust a course as needed. 

• Read more about formative and summative assessment
• Watch the CETL webinar on implementing low-stakes assessment in large courses

How can I determine if students can apply course concepts?

Authentic assessments can tell you a lot about students' ability to apply course concepts and think critically about the content. Authentic assessment focuses on application of course knowledge to a new situation using complex, real-world situations that require a student to think about application of knowledge and skills in society rather than just in the classroom. This moves instructors away from multiple choice and memorization, will improve learning, and limit academic dishonesty. 

• Read more about Authentic Assessment

How do I develop a course assessment?

To develop an assessment you want to think about how a student will demonstrate their understanding of a course concept or demonstrate their skill. Developing an effective Classroom Assessment Technique (CAT) takes some thought because you want to be sure that the CAT is assessing what you want it to assess.

For a detailed process to develop classroom assessments download the Developing Classroom Assessment Techniques Workbook and the CAT KIT .

The workbook provides a step-by-step process for developing classroom assessments. The CAT KIT details six assessments and discusses how to develop them for your own needs and how to use the data. Examples of assessments are provided.

How do I align my assessments to my learning outcomes?

Dr. Aaron Haberman explores different summative assessment methods and will help you develop or refine a high stakes summative assessment that directly aligns with one or more of your course-level student learning outcomes.

• Creating Summative Assessments that Align to Student Learning Outcomes

Angelo, T. A., & Cross, K. P. (1993). Classroom assessment techniques: A handbook for college teachers (2nd ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, p. 7-11

Support for Course Assessment 

If you need support developing course learning outcomes or assessment you can set up a personal consultation with CETL.

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Design and Grade Course Work

This resource provides a brief introduction to designing your course assessment strategy based on your course learning objectives and introduces best practices in assessment design. It also addresses important issues in grading, including strategies to curb cheating and grading methods that reduce implicit bias and provide actionable feedback for students.

In this document, assessments refer to all the ways students’ learning can be measured. This includes summative assessments such as tests and papers, but also formative assessments such as a survey to gauge understanding of course concepts.

Table of Contents:

Crafting effective assessments

Encouraging academic integrity.

• Grading fairly 

Resources & further reading

Tie assessments to the course learning objectives. To determine what kinds of assessments to use in your course, consider what you want the students to learn to do and how that can be measured. When designing an overall plan, it is important to begin with the end in mind.

Consider what type of assessments best fit your learning objectives. For example, a case study is appropriate for measuring students’ ability to apply skills to a new situation, while a multiple choice exam is better for testing their understanding of concepts. This table of assessment choices from Carnegie Mellon University can help you think about the alignment of learning objectives and types of assessments.

Rethink traditional assessment to enhance the learning experience. At the end of a learning unit or module, summative assessments are frequently employed to measure students’ learning. These assessments are usually graded, cumulative in design and take the form of a midterm exam, research paper or final project. Consider replacing a traditional assessment with an authentic assessment situated in a meaningful, real-world context or modifying existing assessments to “do” the subject instead of recalling information. Here are some high-level questions for to get you started:

• Does this assessment replicate or simulate the contexts in which adults are “tested” in the workplace, civic life or personal life?
• Does this assessment challenge students to use what they’ve learned in solving or analyzing new problems?
• Does this assessment provide direct evidence of learning?  
• Is this assessment realistic? Have students been able to practice along the way?
• Does this assessment truly demonstrate success and mastery of a skill students should have at the end of your course?

Further considerations for authentic assessment design are available in this guide from University of Illinois.

In practice, authentic assessments look different by discipline and level of the course. A good starting point is to research common examples of alternative assessments , but consider researching approaches in your discipline. There are also ways to improve traditional assessments such as quizzes to be a measure of true learning instead of memorization.

Our page on  Alternative Strategies for Assessment and Grading  outlines some options for creating assessment activities and policies which are learning-focused, while also being equitable and compassionate. The suggestions are loosely grouped by expected faculty time commitment.

Tailor learning by assessing previous knowledge. At the beginning of a learning unit or module, use a diagnostic assessment to gain insight into students’ existing understanding and skills prior to beginning a new concept. Examples of diagnostic assessments include: discussion, informal quiz, survey or a quick write paper ( see this list for more ideas ).

Use frequent informal assessments to monitor progress. Formative assessments are any assessments implemented to evaluate progress during the learning experience. When possible, provide several low-stakes opportunities for students to demonstrate progress throughout the course. Formative assessments provide five major benefits: (1)

• Students can identify their strengths and weaknesses with a particular concept and request additional support during the learning unit.
• Instructors can target areas where students are struggling that should be addressed either individually or in whole class activities before a more high-stakes assessment.
• Formative assessments can be reviewed and evaluated by peers which provides additional opportunities to learn, both for the reviewer and the student being reviewed.
• Informal, low-stakes assessments reduce student anxiety.
• A more frequent, immediate feedback loop can make some assessments (like graded quizzes) less necessary.

Examples include quick assessments like polls which can make large classes feel smaller or more informal, or end-of-class reflection questions on the day’s content. This longer list of low-stakes, formative assessments can help you find methods that work with your content and goals.

Use rubrics when possible. Students are likely to perform better on assessments when the grading criteria are clear. Research suggests that assessments designed with a corresponding rubric lead to an increased attention to detail and fewer misunderstandings in submitted work. (2)   If you are interested in creating rubrics, Arizona State University has a detailed guide to get started .

Break up larger assessments into smaller parts. Scaffolding major or long-term work into smaller assignments with different deadlines gives students natural structure, helps with time and project management skills and provides multiple opportunities for students to receive constructive feedback. Students also benefit from scaffolding when:

• Rubrics are provided to assess discrete skills and evaluate student practice via smaller pre-assignments. 
• The stakes are lowered for preliminary work.
• Opportunities are offered for rewrite or rework based on feedback.

Use practices that promote inclusive assessment design . Take inventory of the explicit and implicit norms and biases of your course assessments. For example, are your assessment questions phrased in a way that all students (including non-native English speakers) can be successful? Do your course assessments meet basic accessibility standards, including being appropriate for students with visual or hearing needs?

The Duke Community Standard embraces the principle that “intellectual and academic honesty are at the heart of the academic life of any university. It is the responsibility of all students to understand and abide by Duke’s expectations regarding academic work.” (3) Learning the rules of legitimacy in academic work is part of college education, so the topic of cheating and plagiarism should be embraced as part of ongoing discussion among students, and faculty instructors should remind students of this obligation throughout their courses.

Include a statement about cheating and plagiarism in your syllabus. Remind students that they must uphold the standards of student conduct as an obligation of participating in our learning community. This can be reinforced before important assessments as well. Studies have shown that when students have to manually agree to the Honor Pledge prior to submitting an assignment (either online or in person), they are less likely to cheat. (4)

Specify where training is available. Because of their cultural or academic experiences, some students may not be familiar with what constitutes plagiarism in your course. Students can use library resources to learn more about plagiarism and take the university’s plagiarism tutorial .

Include specific guidelines for collaboration, citation and the use of electronic sources for every assessment. For example, it may be necessary to define what kinds of online sources are considered cheating for your discipline (for example, online translators in language courses) or help students understand how to cite correctly .

Provide ongoing feedback to reduce the temptation to cheat. Students are more likely to seek short cuts when they don’t know how to approach a task. Requiring students to turn in smaller parts of a paper or project for feedback and a grade before the final deadline can lessen the risk of cheating. Having multiple milestones on larger assessments reduces the stress of finishing a paper at the last minute or cramming for a final exam.

Ask questions that have no single right answer. The most direct approach to reduce cheating is to design open-ended assessment items. When writing test or quiz questions ask yourself: could this answer be easily discovered online? If so, rewrite your question to elicit more critical thinking from your students.

Open-ended assessments can take the form of case studies, projects, essays, podcasts, interviews or “explain your work” problem sets. Students can provide examples of course concepts in a novel way. They can record themselves explaining the idea to someone else or make a mind map of related events or ideas. They can present their solutions to real-world scenarios as a poster or a podcast. If you choose to conduct an exam, designing questions that ask students to decide which concepts or equations to apply in a scenario, rather than testing recall, may make the most sense for many courses. You could include an oral exam component where students explain their work for a particular problem.

Minimize opportunities for cheating in tests and quizzes online. If you offer quizzes or tests through Sakai, there are several steps that you can take to reduce cheating, plagiarism or other violations:

• Sakai tests include a pledge not to violate the Duke Community Standard. You could also have this printed at the top of a physical test.
• Limit time. Set a time limit that gives students enough time to properly progress through the activity but not so much that unprepared students can research every question.
• Randomize question or answer order. When you randomize (or shuffle) your test or quiz questions, all students will still receive the same questions but not necessarily in the same order. This strategy is particularly useful when you have a large question pool and choose to show a few questions at a time. When you randomize the answers to a question, all students will still receive the same answers but not necessarily in the same order.
• Use large question pools. Pools allow you to use the same question across multiple assessments or create a large number of questions from which to pull a random subset. For example, you could develop (or repurpose) 30 questions in a pool and have Sakai randomly choose 15 of those questions for each student’s assessment.
• Hide correct answers and scores until the test or quiz is closed. This can prevent students from sharing questions and answers with peers during the assessment period.
• Require an explanation of the student’s answer. Require a rationale for their answer either as a short text question or perhaps a voice recording.

Duke has chosen not to implement a proctoring technology. When thinking about proctoring, keep in mind how implementing such policies and technologies might affect our ability to create equitable student-centered learning experiences. Several issues of student well-being and technological constraints you might want to keep in mind include:

• Student privacy : In an online setting, proctoring services essentially bring strangers into students’ homes or dorm rooms — places students may not be comfortable exposing. Additionally, often these services record and store actions of students on non-Duke servers and infrastructure. This makes proctoring services problematic for the in-class setting as well. These violations of privacy perpetuate inequity through the use of surveillance technologies. 
• Technology access : If testing is online all students may not have the same access to technology (e.g., external webcams) for proctoring.
• Accessibility : Proctoring software can create more barriers for students who need accommodations.
• Unease: Proctoring reinforces a surveillance aspect to learning, which impacts student performance .

Grading Fairly

Start with clear instructions, a direct assignment prompt and transparent grading criteria. Explicit instructions reduce confusion and the number of emails that you may receive from your students requesting clarification on an assignment. Your assignment instructions should detail:

• Length requirements
• Formatting requirements
• Expectations of style, voice and tone
• Acceptable structure for reference citations
• Due date(s)
• Technology requirements needed for the assignment
• Description of the measures used to evaluate success

Offer meaningful feedback and a timely response when grading. There are many ways to provide feedback to students on submitted work. Regardless of the grading strategy and tool that you choose, there are a few best practices to consider when providing student feedback:

• Feedback should be prompt . Send feedback as soon as possible after the assignment to give students an adequate amount of time to reflect before moving on to the next assignment.
• Feedback should be equitable . Rubrics can help ensure that students are receiving consistent feedback for similar work. 
• Feedback should be formative . Meaningful feedback focuses on students’ strengths and shares constructive areas to further develop their skills. It is not necessary to correct all errors if patterns can be pointed out.

We recommend avoiding curves for both individual assignments and final course grades. There are several downsides to curves that will negatively impact your pedagogy:

• Curves lower motivation to learn and incentivize cheating
• Curves create barriers to an inclusive learning environment
• Curves also “often result in grades unrelated to content mastery” ( Jeffrey Schinske and Kimberly Tanner )

Rather than using curves, you can introduce feedback strategies that allow students to improve their performance on future assessments by revising submitted work or reflecting on study habits.

Create customized rubrics to grade assignments consistently. Rubrics can reduce the grading burden over the long-term for instructors and increase the quality of the work students create. A well-designed rubric: 

• Provides clear criteria for success that help students produce better work and instructors to be consistent with grading.
• Points out specific areas for students to address in future assignments.
• Allows for consistency in grading and more meaningful feedback.

Grade students anonymously. Blind grading removes any potential positive or negative bias when reviewing an individual’s work. The main assessment tools at Duke, Sakai and Gradescope, have easy controls for implementing anonymous grading. 

Use a grade book that is visible to students. Students should have online access to their grades throughout the semester. It is not necessary to post their cumulative course grade at all times, but seeing the individual items is important. Knowing how they are doing reduces student stress before big assessments. An open and up-to-date grade book provides opportunities for students and instructors to address issues in a timely manner. It allows students to correct any omissions by the instructor and instructors have an immediate sense of which students are struggling as well.

Assessments

Best Practices for Inclusive Assessment (Duke University)

What are inclusive assessment practices? (Tufts University)

Sequencing and Scaffolding Assignments (University of Michigan)

Blind Grading (Yale University)

Using Rubrics (Cornell University)

How to Give Your Students Better Feedback with Technology (Chronicle of Higher Education)

• The Many Faces of Formative Assessment (International Journal of Teaching and Higher Education)
• A Review of Rubric Use in Higher Education (Reddy, Y, et al, Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education)
• Duke Community Standard
• The Impact of Honor Codes and Perceptions of Cheating on Academic Cheating Behaviors, Especially for MBA Bound Undergraduates (O’Neill H., Pfeiffer C.)

Culture & Climate

Full day workshop jun 19, social-emotional learning, full day workshop jun 20, close reading & text-dependent questions, full day workshop jun 21, the flipped classroom, 2-day workshop jun 25 & 26, effective classroom management, full day workshop jul 15, reclaiming the joy of teaching, full day workshop jul 16, growth mindset, full day workshop jul 17, project-based learning, full day workshop jul 18.

Assessing Student Learning: 6 Types of Assessment and How to Use Them

Assessing student learning is a critical component of effective teaching and plays a significant role in fostering academic success. We will explore six different types of assessment and evaluation strategies that can help K-12 educators, school administrators, and educational organizations enhance both student learning experiences and teacher well-being.

We will provide practical guidance on how to implement and utilize various assessment methods, such as formative and summative assessments, diagnostic assessments, performance-based assessments, self-assessments, and peer assessments.

Additionally, we will also discuss the importance of implementing standard-based assessments and offer tips for choosing the right assessment strategy for your specific needs.

Importance of Assessing Student Learning

Assessment plays a crucial role in education, as it allows educators to measure students’ understanding, track their progress, and identify areas where intervention may be necessary. Assessing student learning not only helps educators make informed decisions about instruction but also contributes to student success and teacher well-being.

Assessments provide insight into student knowledge, skills, and progress while also highlighting necessary adjustments in instruction. Effective assessment practices ultimately contribute to better educational outcomes and promote a culture of continuous improvement within schools and classrooms.

1. Formative assessment

Formative assessment is a type of assessment that focuses on monitoring student learning during the instructional process. Its primary purpose is to provide ongoing feedback to both teachers and students, helping them identify areas of strength and areas in need of improvement. This type of assessment is typically low-stakes and does not contribute to a student’s final grade.

Some common examples of formative assessments include quizzes, class discussions, exit tickets, and think-pair-share activities. This type of assessment allows educators to track student understanding throughout the instructional period and identify gaps in learning and intervention opportunities.

To effectively use formative assessments in the classroom, teachers should implement them regularly and provide timely feedback to students.

This feedback should be specific and actionable, helping students understand what they need to do to improve their performance. Teachers should use the information gathered from formative assessments to refine their instructional strategies and address any misconceptions or gaps in understanding. Formative assessments play a crucial role in supporting student learning and helping educators make informed decisions about their instructional practices.

Check Out Our Online Course: Standards-Based Grading: How to Implement a Meaningful Grading System that Improves Student Success

2. summative assessment.

Examples of summative assessments include final exams, end-of-unit tests, standardized tests, and research papers. To effectively use summative assessments in the classroom, it’s important to ensure that they are aligned with the learning objectives and content covered during instruction.

This will help to provide an accurate representation of a student’s understanding and mastery of the material. Providing students with clear expectations and guidelines for the assessment can help reduce anxiety and promote optimal performance.

Summative assessments should be used in conjunction with other assessment types, such as formative assessments, to provide a comprehensive evaluation of student learning and growth.

3. Diagnostic assessment

Diagnostic assessment, often used at the beginning of a new unit or term, helps educators identify students’ prior knowledge, skills, and understanding of a particular topic.

This type of assessment enables teachers to tailor their instruction to meet the specific needs and learning gaps of their students. Examples of diagnostic assessments include pre-tests, entry tickets, and concept maps.

To effectively use diagnostic assessments in the classroom, teachers should analyze the results to identify patterns and trends in student understanding.

This information can be used to create differentiated instruction plans and targeted interventions for students struggling with the upcoming material. Sharing the results with students can help them understand their strengths and areas for improvement, fostering a growth mindset and encouraging active engagement in their learning.

4. Performance-based assessment

Performance-based assessment is a type of evaluation that requires students to demonstrate their knowledge, skills, and abilities through the completion of real-world tasks or activities.

The main purpose of this assessment is to assess students’ ability to apply their learning in authentic, meaningful situations that closely resemble real-life challenges. Examples of performance-based assessments include projects, presentations, portfolios, and hands-on experiments.

These assessments allow students to showcase their understanding and application of concepts in a more active and engaging manner compared to traditional paper-and-pencil tests.

To effectively use performance-based assessments in the classroom, educators should clearly define the task requirements and assessment criteria, providing students with guidelines and expectations for their work. Teachers should also offer support and feedback throughout the process, allowing students to revise and improve their performance.

Incorporating opportunities for peer feedback and self-reflection can further enhance the learning process and help students develop essential skills such as collaboration, communication, and critical thinking.

5. Self-assessment

Self-assessment is a valuable tool for encouraging students to engage in reflection and take ownership of their learning. This type of assessment requires students to evaluate their own progress, skills, and understanding of the subject matter. By promoting self-awareness and critical thinking, self-assessment can contribute to the development of lifelong learning habits and foster a growth mindset.

Examples of self-assessment activities include reflective journaling, goal setting, self-rating scales, or checklists. These tools provide students with opportunities to assess their strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. When implementing self-assessment in the classroom, it is important to create a supportive environment where students feel comfortable and encouraged to be honest about their performance.

Teachers can guide students by providing clear criteria and expectations for self-assessment, as well as offering constructive feedback to help them set realistic goals for future learning.

Incorporating self-assessment as part of a broader assessment strategy can reinforce learning objectives and empower students to take an active role in their education.

Reflecting on their performance and understanding the assessment criteria can help them recognize both short-term successes and long-term goals. This ongoing process of self-evaluation can help students develop a deeper understanding of the material, as well as cultivate valuable skills such as self-regulation, goal setting, and critical thinking.

6. Peer assessment

Peer assessment, also known as peer evaluation, is a strategy where students evaluate and provide feedback on their classmates’ work. This type of assessment allows students to gain a better understanding of their own work, as well as that of their peers.

Examples of peer assessment activities include group projects, presentations, written assignments, or online discussion boards.

In these settings, students can provide constructive feedback on their peers’ work, identify strengths and areas for improvement, and suggest specific strategies for enhancing performance.

Constructive peer feedback can help students gain a deeper understanding of the material and develop valuable skills such as working in groups, communicating effectively, and giving constructive criticism.

To successfully integrate peer assessment in the classroom, consider incorporating a variety of activities that allow students to practice evaluating their peers’ work, while also receiving feedback on their own performance.

Encourage students to focus on both strengths and areas for improvement, and emphasize the importance of respectful, constructive feedback. Provide opportunities for students to reflect on the feedback they receive and incorporate it into their learning process. Monitor the peer assessment process to ensure fairness, consistency, and alignment with learning objectives.

Implementing Standard-Based Assessments

Standard-based assessments are designed to measure students’ performance relative to established learning standards, such as those generated by the Common Core State Standards Initiative or individual state education guidelines.

By implementing these types of assessments, educators can ensure that students meet the necessary benchmarks for their grade level and subject area, providing a clearer picture of student progress and learning outcomes.

To successfully implement standard-based assessments, it is essential to align assessment tasks with the relevant learning standards.

This involves creating assessments that directly measure students’ knowledge and skills in relation to the standards rather than relying solely on traditional testing methods.

As a result, educators can obtain a more accurate understanding of student performance and identify areas that may require additional support or instruction. Grading formative and summative assessments within a standard-based framework requires a shift in focus from assigning letter grades or percentages to evaluating students’ mastery of specific learning objectives.

This approach encourages educators to provide targeted feedback that addresses individual student needs and promotes growth and improvement. By utilizing rubrics or other assessment tools, teachers can offer clear, objective criteria for evaluating student work, ensuring consistency and fairness in the grading process.

Tips For Choosing the Right Assessment Strategy

When selecting an assessment strategy, it’s crucial to consider its purpose. Ask yourself what you want to accomplish with the assessment and how it will contribute to student learning. This will help you determine the most appropriate assessment type for your specific situation.

Aligning assessments with learning objectives is another critical factor. Ensure that the assessment methods you choose accurately measure whether students have met the desired learning outcomes. This alignment will provide valuable feedback to both you and your students on their progress. Diversifying assessment methods is essential for a comprehensive evaluation of student learning.

By using a variety of assessment types, you can gain a more accurate understanding of students’ strengths and weaknesses. This approach also helps support different learning styles and reduces the risk of overemphasis on a single assessment method.

Incorporating multiple forms of assessment, such as formative, summative, diagnostic, performance-based, self-assessment, and peer assessment, can provide a well-rounded understanding of student learning. By doing so, educators can make informed decisions about instruction, support, and intervention strategies to enhance student success and overall classroom experience.

Challenges and Solutions in Assessment Implementation

Implementing various assessment strategies can present several challenges for educators. One common challenge is the limited time and resources available for creating and administering assessments. To address this issue, teachers can collaborate with colleagues to share resources, divide the workload, and discuss best practices.

Utilizing technology and online platforms can also streamline the assessment process and save time. Another challenge is ensuring that assessments are unbiased and inclusive.

To overcome this, educators should carefully review assessment materials for potential biases and design assessments that are accessible to all students, regardless of their cultural backgrounds or learning abilities.

Offering flexible assessment options for the varying needs of learners can create a more equitable and inclusive learning environment. It is essential to continually improve assessment practices and seek professional development opportunities.

Seeking support from colleagues, attending workshops and conferences related to assessment practices, or enrolling in online courses can help educators stay up-to-date on best practices while also providing opportunities for networking with other professionals.

Ultimately, these efforts will contribute to an improved understanding of the assessments used as well as their relevance in overall student learning.

Assessing student learning is a crucial component of effective teaching and should not be overlooked. By understanding and implementing the various types of assessments discussed in this article, you can create a more comprehensive and effective approach to evaluating student learning in your classroom.

Remember to consider the purpose of each assessment, align them with your learning objectives, and diversify your methods for a well-rounded evaluation of student progress.

If you’re looking to further enhance your assessment practices and overall professional development, Strobel Education offers workshops , courses , keynotes , and coaching  services tailored for K-12 educators. With a focus on fostering a positive school climate and enhancing student learning,  Strobel Education can support your journey toward improved assessment implementation and greater teacher well-being.

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Debunking Course Evaluation Myths for Instructors at UB

Published May 8, 2024

As the close of the academic year arrives and students complete their coursework, we turn our attention to the importance of end-of-semester evaluation. Course evaluations often carry misconceptions that can influence both teaching and administrative practices. In this blog post, we unravel several prevalent myths about course evaluations, providing insights that can help instructors better understand and utilize this feedback mechanism effectively.

Myth 1: Course Evaluations Solely Determine Tenure and Promotion

One common myth is that course evaluations are the primary determinant in decisions regarding tenure and promotion within our institution. It is important to understand that these evaluations are merely one of multiple factors considered. They contribute to an overall assessment of teaching performance but are complemented by peer reviews, research achievements and other academic contributions. Understanding this can relieve undue pressure on instructors and encourage a more balanced approach to personal and professional development.

Myth 2: Evaluations Directly Measure Teaching Effectiveness

It is often mistakenly believed that student evaluations provide a direct measure of a teacher’s effectiveness. However, these evaluations more accurately reflect students' perceptions and experiences, which are subjective and influenced by various factors unrelated to teaching quality. Effective teaching assessment should encompass a range of feedback mechanisms and should be viewed as an ongoing process rather than a finite measure. Integrating multiple feedback forms, including peer observations and self-assessments, provides a more rounded view of teaching effectiveness.

Myth 3: Course Evaluations Do Not Impact Student Success

There is a misconception that course evaluations have no direct impact on student success because they do not assess learning outcomes. While evaluations primarily gather feedback on course delivery and content organization, they indirectly influence student success by highlighting areas where teaching methods can be adjusted to enhance learning. For instance, mid-semester evaluations might reveal issues that can be corrected in time to positively affect the learning experience for students currently enrolled in the course.

Myth 4: Evaluations Are Unaffected by External Factors

Evaluations are often thought to be objective assessments of course quality, but in reality, they are susceptible to a variety of external or situational factors. These can include the course's mandatory or elective status, the time of day the class is held, and even the physical classroom environment. Recognizing that these factors can skew evaluation results is crucial for accurate interpretation. This awareness helps prevent misjudgments based on scores that might reflect situational disadvantages rather than true teaching performance.

Strategies for Effective Use of Evaluations

To better utilize course evaluations, instructors can incorporate custom questions that focus on specific aspects of their teaching or course content, thus gaining more actionable feedback. Additionally, fostering a classroom culture that values constructive feedback can enhance the quality and quantity of student responses. Encouraging open dialogue about the purpose and impact of evaluations can demystify the process for students and lead to improvements in both teaching practices and learning outcomes.

Instructors can better understand their role and limitations in academic settings by debunking common myths about course evaluations. This enhanced understanding enables instructors to use evaluations as effective tools for teaching improvement and personal development. Ultimately, the goal is to foster an educational environment where feedback drives growth, benefiting instructors and students alike.

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Office of Curriculum, Assessment and Teaching Transformation 716-645-7700 [email protected]

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Formative, Summative, and More Types of Assessments in Education

All the best ways to evaluate learning before, during, and after it happens.

When you hear the word assessment, do you automatically think “tests”? While it’s true that tests are one kind of assessment, they’re not the only way teachers evaluate student progress. Learn more about the types of assessments used in education, and find out how and when to use them.

Diagnostic Assessments

Formative assessments, summative assessments.

• Criterion-Referenced, Ipsative, and Normative Assessments

What is assessment?

In simplest terms, assessment means gathering data to help understand progress and effectiveness. In education, we gather data about student learning in variety of ways, then use it to assess both their progress and the effectiveness of our teaching programs. This helps educators know what’s working well and where they need to make changes.

There are three broad types of assessments: diagnostic, formative, and summative. These take place throughout the learning process, helping students and teachers gauge learning. Within those three broad categories, you’ll find other types of assessment, such as ipsative, norm-referenced, and criterion-referenced.

What’s the purpose of assessment in education?

In education, we can group assessments under three main purposes:

• Of learning
• For learning
• As learning

Assessment of learning is student-based and one of the most familiar, encompassing tests, reports, essays, and other ways of determining what students have learned. These are usually summative assessments, and they are used to gauge progress for individuals and groups so educators can determine who has mastered the material and who needs more assistance.

When we talk about assessment for learning, we’re referring to the constant evaluations teachers perform as they teach. These quick assessments—such as in-class discussions or quick pop quizzes—give educators the chance to see if their teaching strategies are working. This allows them to make adjustments in action, tailoring their lessons and activities to student needs. Assessment for learning usually includes the formative and diagnostic types.

Assessment can also be a part of the learning process itself. When students use self-evaluations, flash cards, or rubrics, they’re using assessments to help them learn.

Let’s take a closer look at the various types of assessments used in education.

Diagnostic assessments are used before learning to determine what students already do and do not know. This often refers to pre-tests and other activities students attempt at the beginning of a unit.

How To Use Diagnostic Assessments

When giving diagnostic assessments, it’s important to remind students these won’t affect their overall grade. Instead, it’s a way for them to find out what they’ll be learning in an upcoming lesson or unit. It can also help them understand their own strengths and weaknesses, so they can ask for help when they need it.

Teachers can use results to understand what students already know and adapt their lesson plans accordingly. There’s no point in over-teaching a concept students have already mastered. On the other hand, a diagnostic assessment can also help highlight expected pre-knowledge that may be missing.

For instance, a teacher might assume students already know certain vocabulary words that are important for an upcoming lesson. If the diagnostic assessment indicates differently, the teacher knows they’ll need to take a step back and do a little pre-teaching before getting to their actual lesson plans.

Examples of Diagnostic Assessments

• Pre-test: This includes the same questions (or types of questions) that will appear on a final test, and it’s an excellent way to compare results.
• Blind Kahoot: Teachers and kids already love using Kahoot for test review, but it’s also the perfect way to introduce a new topic. Learn how Blind Kahoots work here.
• Survey or questionnaire: Ask students to rate their knowledge on a topic with a series of low-stakes questions.
• Checklist: Create a list of skills and knowledge students will build throughout a unit, and have them start by checking off any they already feel they’ve mastered. Revisit the list frequently as part of formative assessment.

Formative assessments take place during instruction. They’re used throughout the learning process and help teachers make on-the-go adjustments to instruction and activities as needed. These assessments aren’t used in calculating student grades, but they are planned as part of a lesson or activity. Learn much more about formative assessments here.

How To Use Formative Assessments

As you’re building a lesson plan, be sure to include formative assessments at logical points. These types of assessments might be used at the end of a class period, after finishing a hands-on activity, or once you’re through with a unit section or learning objective.

Once you have the results, use that feedback to determine student progress, both overall and as individuals. If the majority of a class is struggling with a specific concept, you might need to find different ways to teach it. Or you might discover that one student is especially falling behind and arrange to offer extra assistance to help them out.

While kids may grumble, standard homework review assignments can actually be a pretty valuable type of formative assessment . They give kids a chance to practice, while teachers can evaluate their progress by checking the answers. Just remember that homework review assignments are only one type of formative assessment, and not all kids have access to a safe and dedicated learning space outside of school.

Examples of Formative Assessments

• Exit tickets : At the end of a lesson or class, pose a question for students to answer before they leave. They can answer using a sticky note, online form, or digital tool.
• Kahoot quizzes : Kids enjoy the gamified fun, while teachers appreciate the ability to analyze the data later to see which topics students understand well and which need more time.
• Flip (formerly Flipgrid): We love Flip for helping teachers connect with students who hate speaking up in class. This innovative (and free!) tech tool lets students post selfie videos in response to teacher prompts. Kids can view each other’s videos, commenting and continuing the conversation in a low-key way.
• Self-evaluation: Encourage students to use formative assessments to gauge their own progress too. If they struggle with review questions or example problems, they know they’ll need to spend more time studying. This way, they’re not surprised when they don’t do well on a more formal test.

Find a big list of 25 creative and effective formative assessment options here.

Summative assessments are used at the end of a unit or lesson to determine what students have learned. By comparing diagnostic and summative assessments, teachers and learners can get a clearer picture of how much progress they’ve made. Summative assessments are often tests or exams but also include options like essays, projects, and presentations.

How To Use Summative Assessments

The goal of a summative assessment is to find out what students have learned and if their learning matches the goals for a unit or activity. Ensure you match your test questions or assessment activities with specific learning objectives to make the best use of summative assessments.

When possible, use an array of summative assessment options to give all types of learners a chance to demonstrate their knowledge. For instance, some students suffer from severe test anxiety but may still have mastered the skills and concepts and just need another way to show their achievement. Consider ditching the test paper and having a conversation with the student about the topic instead, covering the same basic objectives but without the high-pressure test environment.

Summative assessments are often used for grades, but they’re really about so much more. Encourage students to revisit their tests and exams, finding the right answers to any they originally missed. Think about allowing retakes for those who show dedication to improving on their learning. Drive home the idea that learning is about more than just a grade on a report card.

Examples of Summative Assessments

• Traditional tests: These might include multiple-choice, matching, and short-answer questions.
• Essays and research papers: This is another traditional form of summative assessment, typically involving drafts (which are really formative assessments in disguise) and edits before a final copy.
• Presentations: From oral book reports to persuasive speeches and beyond, presentations are another time-honored form of summative assessment.

Find 25 of our favorite alternative assessments here.

More Types of Assessments

Now that you know the three basic types of assessments, let’s take a look at some of the more specific and advanced terms you’re likely to hear in professional development books and sessions. These assessments may fit into some or all of the broader categories, depending on how they’re used. Here’s what teachers need to know.

Criterion-Referenced Assessments

In this common type of assessment, a student’s knowledge is compared to a standard learning objective. Most summative assessments are designed to measure student mastery of specific learning objectives. The important thing to remember about this type of assessment is that it only compares a student to the expected learning objectives themselves, not to other students.

Many standardized tests are criterion-referenced assessments. A governing board determines the learning objectives for a specific group of students. Then, all students take a standardized test to see if they’ve achieved those objectives.

Find out more about criterion-referenced assessments here.

Norm-Referenced Assessments

These types of assessments do compare student achievement with that of their peers. Students receive a ranking based on their score and potentially on other factors as well. Norm-referenced assessments usually rank on a bell curve, establishing an “average” as well as high performers and low performers.

These assessments can be used as screening for those at risk for poor performance (such as those with learning disabilities) or to identify high-level learners who would thrive on additional challenges. They may also help rank students for college entrance or scholarships, or determine whether a student is ready for a new experience like preschool.

Learn more about norm-referenced assessments here.

Ipsative Assessments

In education, ipsative assessments compare a learner’s present performance to their own past performance, to chart achievement over time. Many educators consider ipsative assessment to be the most important of all , since it helps students and parents truly understand what they’ve accomplished—and sometimes, what they haven’t. It’s all about measuring personal growth.

Comparing the results of pre-tests with final exams is one type of ipsative assessment. Some schools use curriculum-based measurement to track ipsative performance. Kids take regular quick assessments (often weekly) to show their current skill/knowledge level in reading, writing, math, and other basics. Their results are charted, showing their progress over time.

Learn more about ipsative assessment in education here.

Have more questions about the best types of assessments to use with your students? Come ask for advice in the We Are Teachers HELPLINE group on Facebook.

Plus, check out creative ways to check for understanding ..

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Course-Level Assessment

Faculty and instructional staff are responsible for guiding and monitoring student learning throughout the academic program beginning at the course level. When designing new courses or planning current offerings, instructors establish course-level student learning outcomes, which may advance some aspect of the academic program outcomes.

All UW–Madison courses must have course syllabi with clearly articulated student learning outcomes. Find information about UW–Madison’s course approval process .

Benefits of Course Assessment

Frequent use of course assessments provides…

• regular feedback about student progress (quizzes, tests, etc.).
• insight into day-to-day teaching methods and student learning processes.
• students with a means of gauging their own learning and then modify study strategies as appropriate.
• student data and feedback for instructors for course improvements.
• Tips & Examples for Writing Student Learning Outcomes More
• Course Evaluation Surveys More
• Rubrics & Direct Measures More
• Survey & Indirect Measures More

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The Benefits of Course Evaluation in Higher Education

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An increasing number of higher education institutions have begun administering online course evaluations for their students. As students and instructors learn to navigate unfamiliar learning environments, especially those which are entirely virtual, course evaluations open a line of communication to help professors become more effective in these environments and give students an active role in their education.

Course evaluations encourage self-reflection among students, faculty, and staff, which drives growth and development. Effective survey solutions allow a department or campus to get a read on the student population, which encourages constant change for the better.

What is a Course Evaluation?

Course evaluations are anonymous surveys completed by students, usually at the end of a term, to reflect on the efficacy of an instructor and the course. University course evaluations provide a wide variety of benefits. Some universities create a course evaluation template to rely on each year as they gather students' feedback. After students have responded to the course evaluations, administrators receive the results. This data set includes information from student evaluation of courses to help improve the course in the future.

8 Benefits to Online Course Evaluations

Online course evaluations provide numerous benefits for students, teachers, and staff administrators. Regardless of when a professor administers course evaluations – usually mid-semester or the end of term – they can receive valuable feedback from their students to help improve their instruction style. Students also have the opportunity to communicate concerns or appreciation for their professors, giving them a voice and making them active participants in the classroom. Administration can collect information from student course evaluations to evaluate a professor in conjunction with other information.

1. Maintain Anonymity

Students highly value anonymity when they give their professors feedback, especially when they criticize aspects of their teaching. Anonymity ensures students that their comments cannot be attributed to them in particular, which allows them to feel more comfortable expanding on their honest insights on their course or teacher.

In one study demonstrating the benefits of course evaluations, the researchers distributed different kinds of surveys to determine which factors most heavily contributed to responses and how to optimize student participation. They selected each online platform to manipulate different variables, but every platform allowed students to anonymously report their feedback. This demonstrates the inherent importance of allowing students to offer insights without attaching their contributions to their identity.

Administrators should prioritize anonymity in all aspects of the evaluation collection. This includes maintaining the privacy of students and their thoughts throughout data collection. A course evaluation survey solution should allow you to reopen or reset responses while maintaining the anonymity of the response and allow role-based permissions that you can customize to limit who has access to results and information.

2. Elicit Meaningful Comments

Many people believe that online course evaluations yield a higher amount of negative feedback than paper-based surveys. However, studies have proven this to be a misconception . Researchers did not identify consistent, significant differences between evaluations submitted online and those which students completed on paper. In general, overall trends in evaluations remain consistent between surveys submitted on paper and online.

However, online course evaluations do show a higher rate of meaningful comments from students. In one study, less than 10% of students provided open-ended commentary about their course or professor when the professor administered the evaluation on paper during their class. However, the same study showed that 63% of students who completed and submitted the survey online offered long-form or open-ended commentary.

Longer commentary supplied in course evaluations by students allows for more active responses by professors. Optimal course evaluations include a limited number of questions, which means that, in order to get a more comprehensive understanding of student insights from the survey, respondents need to provide open-ended commentary. Conducting course evaluations online encourages students to contribute additional insights and supplies more constructive feedback for teachers.

3. Offer Greater Accessibility

Most course evaluations are administered online, and with good reason. Electronic survey collection platforms offer greater flexibility for students to complete the evaluations outside of the classroom. They also allow a respondent to take all the time they need – they can take breaks, spend time thinking about their answers, and dedicate a longer period for writing their responses. Additionally, they avoid the stress of completing their evaluation first or last and making their response easier to identify.

4. Encourage Self-Reflection

Students and teachers alike benefit from course evaluations because of the necessary self-refection. In order to provide meaningful feedback, students must consider both their instructor's performance and the demonstrated commitment they had to the course. Respondents reflect on their performance throughout the term to determine which aspects of the course they enjoyed and disliked, while factoring in how their attitude and performance impacted those experiences. This allows them to provide constructive feedback for their professors and brainstorm how they can perform better as a student in the next term.

Constructive feedback allows professors to reflect on their performance throughout the term. Newer instructors with limited teaching experience especially benefit from the evaluations. Instructors can compare their own assessment of their performance with the feedback provided by their students to more accurately determine the effectiveness of their efforts throughout the term. Well-made evaluations create actionable goals for instructors to help them develop and grow over time.

5. Reduce Cost and Environmental Impact

Online course evaluations are much more environmentally friendly than their paper counterparts. Printing hundreds of evaluations uses significant amounts of paper, and students are becoming increasingly environmentally conscious. Many schools also have a commitment to environmentally sustainable practices, so you can uphold this statement by opting for online course evaluations. Paper evaluations also cost much more than an online survey platform. Save money by implementing efficient virtual course evaluations.

Loose paper also gets misplaced or lost easily, which means that students must either complete the evaluation during valuable class time or keep careful track of the paper. When the sheets get lost, either the school uses more funds to replace them or forfeits the feedback. Many students likely avoid requesting a new copy of the evaluation sheet, which means that they opt out of submitting an evaluation altogether.

6. Acquire Metrics for Teacher Evaluation

While short-term goal setting and self-reflection offers great benefits for students and teachers alike, course evaluations collected over time also provide a metric for long-term instructor evaluation. Faculty may refer to the course evaluations for a newer instructor or individual with less teaching experience to determine whether they are prepared for advancement. Combined with other types of evaluation, such as in situ observation, course evaluation surveys provide valuable insights for contract renewal considerations and advancement opportunities.

Course evaluations also come into play for tenure-track faculty who may be considered for promotions. The most important factor for determining an instructor's effectiveness in the classroom boils down to overall trends. Student feedback contributes to these evaluation metrics and may also complement other factors like general score trends and patterns for specific courses.

Administration values the information gathered from course evaluations, but instructors may also review the feedback provided to track their own growth and development over time. Regardless of whether they do so for specific goal measurement, they can determine whether the changes they have made over time have had positive effects for their students. This becomes especially important as instructors navigate unfamiliar online learning environments.

7. Receive and Assess Information Quickly

Whereas paper evaluations require manual calculation of results, online course evaluations aggregate information automatically and, consequently, much more quickly. This saves significant amounts of time and offers the perk of real-time access to data. Immediate insights allow for quicker responses and easier decision-making. Good survey solutions allow administrators to aggregate and disaggregate data according to certain filters and criteria. This allows you to sift through the data and pull relevant information more easily.

The ability to generate reports, compare feedback data over time, and organize results based on demographic information allows you to have a more comprehensive view of the feedback students provide.

8. Give a Voice to Students

Allowing students to provide feedback about their courses and instructors demonstrates that the institution cares about their experience in the classroom. Students seeking higher education dedicate extensive time and effort to obtaining their degree, just as instructors spend hours preparing lessons and class materials, meeting with students to ensure their success, and evaluating submitted coursework.

Allowing students to voice their concerns with and appreciation for their courses or instructors gives them a more active role. Rather than centering classrooms around professors, shift the focus to the students and allow them to contribute to their educational experience.

Create an Effective Course Evaluation

Course evaluations offer many benefits, but only when done correctly. There are some essential steps that you must take in order to create an effective course evaluation for students. We collected seven considerations you should make as you create a plan for an effective course evaluation.

1. Establish Criteria for Good Teaching

Determine what kind of data you aim to gather with the students' course evaluations. Some of the most common goals may include evaluating teacher effectiveness, collecting data for teacher training, and providing focus points for specific aspects of the classroom experience.

Establish the criteria for good teaching to ensure that you sort data according to those expectations. The definition of good teaching varies, but many programs fall back on the outline of scholarly teaching, which relies on six standards – clear goals, adequate preparation, appropriate methods, significant results, effective presentation, and reflective critique.

After deciding upon the criteria to prioritize in evaluations, create questions that help collect data pertaining to those standards. Because general academia has not come to an agreement on how to reliably determine teaching effectiveness, it lacks a standard course evaluation template. However, you should aim to ask questions that address a single criterion in your teaching standards. Avoid questions that ask respondents to address more than one aspect of a teacher's performance, and stay clear of leading questions that introduce bias.

2. Limit the Amount of Questions

After establishing the criteria that the evaluation aims to address, decide how many questions to include in the survey. Too few questions limit the amount of data that faculty receive, but too many questions deter students from submitting feedback because of survey fatigue. While it may be tempting to create a long survey that supplies comprehensive results, this decreases response rates.

Many course evaluation surveys divide the questions among the different standards of teaching effectiveness they aim to address. Assign a specific amount of questions to each category you want to measure and create questions that address that particular aspect of the classroom or instruction. Ensure that you elicit information that will be conducive to achieving your goals. This means that you should think carefully about how you will consider the data after collecting it and have a thorough understanding of how to analyze your findings.

Consider stating the amount of questions in the initial instructions of the survey. This prepares respondents for the length of the evaluation, so they can determine whether they will have enough time to thoroughly respond to the prompts.

3. Ensure Students Understand the Questions

Question clarity plays an essential role in the types of responses collected in a survey. When students misunderstand the questions, their answers are less meaningful to the data set. However, there is no way to know that students misunderstood the question when they answered, which means that analyzing the data provided may lead to skewed results.

To prevent misleading questions, ensure that the questions you include specifically address aspects of effective teaching that students can observe in the classroom. Although an instructor's expertise in a subject directly impacts their ability to proficiently teach it, many students would be unable to judge the extent of a professor's expertise. However, students observe and are directly affected by an instructor's enthusiasm about the subject and their ability to explain the concepts in a practical, digestible fashion.

To ensure clarity, obtain feedback from a small group of randomly selected students about the question quality before making the evaluation public to everyone. You may also consider allowing survey respondents to provide commentary on the question clarity. This process ensures that faculty and administrators accurately interpret data.

4. Use Standardized Questions

After you have written clear questions, determine how to standardize them across programs and departments on campus. Using the same questions allows administrators to easily identify trends from the data and compare feedback for instructors and courses within a department or over various disciplines. For schools aiming to obtain a comprehensive view of their entire campus, standardized questions level the playing field and better allow for meaningful comparison.

However, you should consider how questions apply to different courses depending on delivery method and course style. Courses that primarily use small laboratory groups may not be comparable to large lecture courses. As a result, questions that ask about the effectiveness of a specific delivery method will produce results that are not comparable across all departments.

Allow flexibility and practicality of course evaluations by permitting instructors to add questions at the end of the survey that are specific to their course. This ensures that professors receive valuable feedback pertaining specifically to their instruction methodology and chosen educational setting in addition to the standard questions that aim to measure general criteria.

5. Vary Question Styles

Though there have been debates about the most effective rating styles for data collections, most sources agree that course evaluations greatly benefit from primarily employing a rating scale. Rating scales are beneficial because they permit a respondent to complete the survey quickly, which helps increase response rate.

A four- or five-point scale is most common for course evaluation surveys. Departments must determine whether they choose to include a "neutral" option and/or "not applicable" options. If an overwhelming number of respondents select the neutral option, then the department may opt for a four-point system. This requires students to take a preference one way or another in their responses. The "not applicable" options are extremely useful if your campus chooses to include standardized questions that do not apply to all courses or instructors.

Online course evaluations more frequently elicit longer responses in open-ended questions. Respondents provide valuable information in these open-ended questions, so consider including some questions that allow students to elaborate on answers. Write these questions carefully to ensure that students understand what kind of information you want them to provide, and avoid unnecessarily vague prompts.

6. Consider Who Students Evaluate

In some courses, more than one instructor leads the class. This may occur more frequently in certain departments. Similarly, some introductory courses include graduate students to teach part of the course and a full-time professor teaching the rest. These specific scenarios require administration to consider which instructors a student evaluates.

Most programs limit the amount of instructors that students evaluate, and they determine which instructors receive feedback based on a variety of factors. Some departments prefer receiving evaluations for one instructor per course, determined by who taught the majority of the time. Other programs prefer to review evaluations for new instructors to receive more data about their performance, while longer-standing faculty members may require fewer evaluations.

Surveys that require respondents to provide feedback for multiple instructors will end up longer. As we discussed previously, you should aim to limit the amount of questions in the evaluation to avoid survey burnout.

7. Decide When to Offer Evaluations

Most campuses administer course evaluations in the last two weeks of the term before final exams. This allows students to formulate a well-informed opinion throughout the semester, and this time frame rarely interferes with other academic deadlines as students prepare for exams. Avoid offering evaluations after students have completed the final examination for the course or on the same day as the exam. Students may project their feelings about the exam onto the evaluation and skew the results.

Some programs opt to administer course evaluations in the middle of the semester. This allows instructors to consider how their students feel about their instruction and the course overall, giving teachers the opportunity to make adjustments to benefit the class. When the department administers official evaluations at the end of the year, some professors choose to administer unofficial course reviews midway through the semester to allow students to express their concerns and reflect on their performance up to that point.

How Watermark Can Help

The Watermark Course Evaluations & Surveys solution allows you to collect high volumes of student feedback and monitor the responses in real time. Enhance response rates with Learning Management System (LMS) integration options for more platforms for students to access the surveys. Our solutions work with the technology and LMS systems you already use, such as Blackboard, Canvas, D2L, and Moodle, to make the transition even easier.

Contact Watermark Today

An integrated course evaluation and survey solution drives campuses toward more effective instruction. By opening a line of communication between students and instructors, a campus can facilitate professional and academic growth and development. Watermark offers an award-winning software system that campuses around the country can trust. We value customer satisfaction, so we offer continued customer support beyond the initial installation. With over 20 years of accumulated knowledge and experience, we can offer a wide variety of functionality for your campus. If you would like to learn more about Watermark or contact us for a demo, you can fill out the contact form .

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Coursework vs Exams: What’s Easier? (Pros and Cons)

In A-Level , GCSE , General by Think Student Editor September 12, 2023 Leave a Comment

Coursework and exams are two different techniques used to assess students on certain subjects. Both of these methods can seem like a drag when trying to get a good grade, as they both take so many hours of work! However, is it true that one of these assessment techniques is easier than the other? Some students pick subjects specifically because they are only assessed via coursework or only assessed via exams, depending on what they find easiest. However, could there be a definite answer to what is the easiest?

If you want to discover whether coursework or exams are easier and the pros and cons of these methods, check out the rest of this article!

Disclaimer: This article is solely based on one student’s opinion. Every student has different perspectives on whether coursework or exams are easier. Therefore, the views expressed in this article may not align with your own.

Table of Contents

Coursework vs exams: what’s easier?

The truth is that whether you find coursework or exams easier depends on you and how you like to work. Different students learn best in different ways and as a result, will have differing views on these two assessment methods.

Coursework requires students to complete assignments and essays throughout the year which are carefully graded and moderated. This work makes up a student’s coursework and contributes to their final grade.

In comparison, exams often only take place at the end of the year. Therefore, students are only assessed at one point in the year instead of throughout. All of a student’s work then leads up to them answering a number of exams which make up their grade.

There are pros and cons for both of these methods, depending on how you learn and are assessed best. Therefore, whether you find coursework or exams easier or not depends on each individual.

Is coursework easier than exams?

Some students believe that coursework is easier than exams. This is because it requires students to work on it all throughout the year, whilst having plenty of resources available to them.

As a result, there is less pressure on students at the end of the year, as they have gradually been able to work hard on their coursework, which then determines their grade. If you do coursework at GCSE or A-Level, you will generally have to complete an extended essay or project.

Some students find this easier than exams because they have lots of time to research and edit their essays, allowing the highest quality of work to be produced. You can discover more about coursework and tips for how to make it stand out if you check out this article from Oxford Royale.

However, some students actually find coursework harder because of the amount of time it takes and all of the research involved. Consequently, whether you prefer coursework or not depends on how you enjoy learning.

What are the cons of coursework?

As already hinted at, the main con of coursework is the amount of time it takes. In my experience, coursework was always such a drag because it took up so much of my time!

When you hear that you have to do a long essay, roughly 2000-3000 words, it sounds easily achievable. However, the amount of research you have to do is immense, and then editing and reviewing your work takes even more time.

Coursework should not be over and done within a week. It requires constant revisits and rephrasing, as you make it as professional sounding and high quality as possible. Teachers are also unable to give lots of help to students doing coursework. This is because it is supposed to be an independent project.

Teachers are able to give some advice, however not too much support. This can be difficult for students who are used to being given lots of help.

You also have to be very careful with what you actually write. If you plagiarise anything that you have written, your coursework could be disqualified. Therefore, it is very important that you pay attention to everything you write and make sure that you don’t copy explicitly from other websites. This can make coursework a risky assessment method.

You are allowed to use websites for research, however you must reference them correctly. This can be a difficult skill for some students to learn also!

What are the pros of coursework?

Some of the cons of coursework already discussed can actually be seen as pros by some students! Due to coursework being completed throughout the year, this places less pressure on students, as they don’t have to worry about final exams completely determining their grade.

Some subjects require students to sit exams and complete some coursework. However, if a student already knows that they have completed some high-quality coursework when it comes to exam season, they are less likely to place pressure on themselves. They know that their coursework could save their grade even if they don’t do very well on the exam.

A lot of coursework also requires students to decide what they want to research or investigate. This allows students to be more creative, as they decide what to research, depending on the subject. This can make school more enjoyable and also give them more ideas about what they want to do in the future.

If you are about to sit your GCSEs and are thinking that coursework is the way to go, check out this article from Think Student to discover which GCSE subjects require students to complete coursework.

What are the cons of exams?

Personally, I hated exams! Most students share this opinion. After all, so much pressure is put on students to complete a set of exams at the end of the school year. Therefore, the main con of sitting exams is the amount of pressure that students are put under.

Unlike coursework, students are unable to go back and revisit the answers to their exams over many weeks. Instead, after those 2 (ish) hours are up, you have to leave the exam hall and that’s it! Your grade will be determined from your exams.

This can be seen as not the best method, as it doesn’t take student’s performances throughout the rest of the year into account. Consequently, if a student is just having a bad day and messes up one of their exams, nothing can be done about it!

If you are struggling with exam stress at the moment, check out this article from Think Student to discover ways of dealing with it.

Exams also require an immense amount of revision which takes up time and can be difficult for students to complete. If you want to discover some revision tips, check out this article from Think Student.

What are the pros of exams?

Exams can be considered easier however because they are over with quickly. Unlike coursework, all students have to do is stay in an exam hall for a couple of hours and it’s done! If you want to discover how long GCSE exams generally last, check out this article from Think Student.

Alternatively, you can find out how long A-Level exams are in this article from Think Student. There is no need to work on one exam paper for weeks – apart from revising of course!

Revising for exams does take a while, however revising can also be beneficial because it increases a student’s knowledge. Going over information again and again means that the student is more likely to remember it and use it in real life. This differs greatly from coursework.

Finally, the main advantage of exams is that it is much harder to cheat in any way. Firstly, this includes outright cheating – there have been issues in the past with students getting other people to write their coursework essays.

However, it also includes the help you get. Some students may have an unfair advantage if their teachers offer more help and guidance with coursework than at other schools. In an exam, it is purely the student’s work.

While this doesn’t necessarily make exams easier than coursework, it does make them fairer, and is the reason why very few GCSEs now include coursework.

If you want to discover more pros and cons of exams, check out this article from AplusTopper.

What type of student is coursework and exams suited to?

You have probably already gathered from this article whether exams or coursework are easier. This is because it all depends on you. Hopefully, the pros and cons outlined have helped you to decide whether exams or coursework is the best assessment method for you.

If you work well under pressure and prefer getting assessed all at once instead of gradually throughout the year, then exams will probably be easier for you. This is also true if you are the kind of person that leaves schoolwork till the last minute! Coursework will definitely be seen as difficult for you if you are known for doing this!

However, if, like me, you buckle under pressure and prefer having lots of time to research and write a perfect essay, then you may find coursework easier. Despite this, most GCSE subjects are assessed via exams. Therefore, you won’t be able to escape all exams!

As a result, it can be useful to find strategies that will help you work through them. This article from Think Student details a range of skills and techniques which could be useful to use when you are in an exam situation.

Exams and coursework are both difficult in their own ways – after all, they are used to thoroughly assess you! Depending on how you work best, it is your decision to decide whether one is easier than the other and which assessment method this is.

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Diabetes, life course and childhood socioeconomic conditions: an empirical assessment for Mexico

• Marina Gonzalez-Samano 1 &
• Hector J. Villarreal 1  

BMC Public Health volume  24 , Article number:  1274 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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Demographic and epidemiological dynamics characterized by lower fertility rates and longer life expectancy, as well as higher prevalence of non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, represent important challenges for policy makers around the World. We investigate the risk factors that influence the diagnosis of diabetes in the Mexican population aged 50 years and over, including childhood poverty.

This work employs a probabilistic regression model with information from the Mexican Health and Aging Study (MHAS) of 2012 and 2018. Our results are consistent with the existing literature and should raise strong concerns. The findings suggest that risk factors that favor the diagnosis of diabetes in adulthood are: age, family antecedents of diabetes, obesity, and socioeconomic conditions during both adulthood and childhood.

Conclusions

Poverty conditions before the age 10, with inter-temporal poverty implications, are associated with a higher probability of being diagnosed with diabetes when older and pose extraordinary policy challenges.

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One of the major public health concerns worldwide is the negative consequences that the demographic (with its epidemiological) transition could bring. This demographic transition is driven by increasing levels of life expectancy (caused by technological innovation and scientific breakthroughs in many cases) and decreasing fertility rates. While during the 20th century, the main health concerns were related to infectious and parasitic diseases, at the present time, non-communicable diseases (NCDs), such as diabetes, constitute a harsh burden in terms of economic and social impact. NCDs most commonly affect the health of adults and the elderly. The economic and social costs associated with NCDs increase sharply with age. These patterns have implications for economic growth, poverty-reduction efforts and social welfare [ 1 ].

Mexico’s demographic trends are reflecting a significant shift over the past decades, much like those observed globally. In 1950, the fertility rate stood at 6.7 children per woman, and the proportion of the population aged 60 or over was about 2%. Since the 1970s, there has been a considerable decrease in fertility rates; by 2017, it had dropped to 2.2 children per woman [ 2 ]. Even more pressing, according to CONAPO Mexico had a total fertility rate of 1.91 during 2023 [ 3 ]. Alongside the declining fertility, the aging population is becoming a more prominent feature in Mexico’s demographic profile. In 2017, individuals aged 60 and over constituted around 10% of the population. Forecasts for 2050 project that this figure will more than double, with those 60 and over representing 25% of the total population. These trends suggest substantial changes in Mexico’s population structure, with implications for policy-making in areas such as healthcare, pensions, and workforce development [ 2 ].

Regarding NCDs, in 2017 13% of the Mexican adult population suffered from diabetes, which is twice the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) average and it is also the highest rate among its members. Some of the risk factors associated with this disease are being overweight or obese, unhealthy diets and sedentary lifestyles. In 2017 72.5% of the Mexican population was overweight or obese [ 4 ] and the country had the highest OECD rate of hospital admissions for diabetes. During the period of 2012 to 2017, the number of hospital admissions for amputations related to this condition, increased by more than 10%, which suggests a deterioration in quality and control of diabetes treatments [ 4 ]. Moreover, it is estimated that diabetes prevalence will continue with its upward trend; forecasts anticipate that in 2030 there will be around 17.2 million people in Mexico with this condition [ 5 ].

Despite the increasing proportion of older people, most of the research regarding the effects of socioeconomic conditions on health focuses on economically active populations. Those which do consider older people, do not investigate length factors such as childhood conditions [ 6 , 7 ]. In this sense, the Social Determinants of Health (SDH) throughout the Life Course approach provide a framework to ponder and direct the design of public policies on population aging and health [ 8 , 9 ]. They focus on well-being and the quality of life of populations from a multi-factorial perspective [ 10 , 11 , 12 ].

In this study, we explore the impact of childhood and adulthood conditions and other demographic and health aspects on diabetes among older people. The literature has proposed several mechanisms through which the mentioned drivers could operate. In general, these approaches imply that satisfactory socioeconomic outcomes for adults may relatively atone for poor socioeconomic conditions in early childhood [ 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 ].

Poverty conditions during the first years of life have critical implications, and yet children are twice as likely to live in poverty as adults [ 16 , 17 ]. On the other hand, poverty is known to be closely linked to NCDs such as diabetes. According to [ 13 ], NCDs are expected to obstruct poverty reduction efforts in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) by increasing costs associated with health care. Moreover, the costs resulting from NCDs such as diabetes could deplete household incomes rapidly and impulse millions of people into poverty [ 16 ].

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has highlighted the consequences of what it describes as the “invisible epidemic”: non-communicable diseases. NCDs are the leading cause of death worldwide, accounting for 71% or 41 million of the annual deaths globally. The majority (85%) of NCD deaths among people under 70 years of age occur in low and middle-income countries [ 17 ].

According the World Health Organization (WHO), SDH are non-medical factors that influence health outcomes, such as the circumstances in which people are born, grow, work, live, and age, and the broader set of forces and systems that shape the conditions of daily life Footnote 1 .

These forces include economic policies and systems, development agendas, social norms and policies, and political systems [ 11 , 18 ]. In this regard, SDH have an important influence on health inequities in countries of all income levels. Health and disease follow a social gradient, that is, the lower the socioeconomic status, a lesser health is expected [ 11 , 18 ].

On the other hand, the Life Course perspective distinguishes the opportunity to inhibit and control illnesses at key phases of life from preconception to pregnancy, infancy, childhood, adolescence, and through adulthood. This does not follow the health model where an individual is healthy until disease occurs, the trajectory is determined earlier in life. Evidence suggests that age related mortality and morbidity can be anticipated in early life with factors such as maternal diet [ 19 ] and body composition, low childhood intelligence, and negative childhood experiences acting as antecedents of late-life diseases [ 13 ].

The consequential diversity in the capacities and health needs of older people is not accidental. They are rooted in events throughout the life course and SDH that can often be modified, hence opening intervention opportunities. This framework is central in the proposed “Healthy Aging”. According to WHO [ 20 ], Healthy Aging is “the process of developing and maintaining the functional ability that enables well-being in older age”.

In this way, the Life Course and SDH approaches allow to better distinguish how social differences in health are perpetuated and propagated, and how they can be diminished or assuaged through generations. Several research efforts suggest that age related mortality and morbidity can be predicted in early life with aspects such as maternal nutrition, low childhood intelligence, difficult childhood experiences acting as antecedents of late-life diseases [ 13 ]. The Life Course acknowledges the contribution of earlier life conditions on adult health outcomes [ 15 , 21 ]. In addition, SDH have an important influence on inequality and, therefore, on people’s well-being and quality of life [ 22 ]. Trends in health literacy across life are also influenced by various SDH such as income, educational level, gender and ethnicity [ 23 ].

Finally, though the research that links early life conditions and health outcomes in adulthood is scarce in low and middle-income countries, our study aims to address the gaps in knowledge regarding the impact of childhood socioeconomic conditions on long-term health outcomes, including the prevalence of non-communicable diseases in LMICs. We specifically focus on the incidence of diabetes in Mexico. Advocating for early-life targeted interventions, we highlight the critical need to address the root causes of NCDs to reduce their impact on the most vulnerable groups. Utilizing data from the Mexican Health and Aging Study (MHAS), which provides comprehensive health, demographic, and socioeconomic information on individuals aged 50 and older, as well as details on their childhoods (before the age of 10) and family health backgrounds [ 24 ], our research emphasizes the importance of developing targeted interventions on early life course stages.

Health, childhood and adulthood conditions

Multiple studies highlight that childhood experiences can influence patterns of disease, aging, and mortality later in life [ 10 , 11 , 16 , 20 , 25 ]. The conditions in health and its social determinants accumulate over the life course. This process initiates with pregnancy and early childhood, continues throughout school years and the transition to working life and later in retirement. The main priority should be for countries to ensure a good start in life during childhood. This requires at least adequate social and health protection for women, plus affordable good early childhood education and care systems for infants [ 11 ].

However, demonstrating links between childhood health conditions and adult development and health is complex. Frequently, researchers do not have the data necessary to distinguish the health effects of changes in living standards or environmental conditions with respect to childhood illnesses [ 26 ]. A study conducted in Sweden, concluded that reduced early exposure to diseases is related to increases in life expectancy. Additionally, research with data from two surveys of Latin America countries found associations between early life conditions and disabilities later in life. In this sense, the study suggests that older people who were born and raised in times of poor nutrition and a higher risk of exposure to infectious diseases, were more likely to have some disability. In a survey in Puerto Rico, it was observed that the probability of being disabled was greater than 64% for people who grew up in poor conditions than for those who grew up in good conditions. Another survey that considered seven urban centers in Latin America found that the probability of disability was 43% higher for those with disadvantaged backgrounds, than for those with favorable ones [ 26 ].

Recent studies have focused on childhood circumstances to explain later life outcomes [ 12 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 ]. These research findings have shown the importance of considering socioeconomic aspects during childhood, including child poverty from a multidimensional perspective [ 12 ], as a determinant of health status of adults and health disparities. When disadvantaged as children, irreversible effects on health show-up frequently. One clear example is the association of socioeconomic aspects during childhood with type 2 diabetes and obesity in adulthood [ 32 , 33 ].

The future development of children is linked to present socioeconomic levels and social mobility in adulthood [ 27 ]. Some studies [ 28 , 34 , 35 ] indicate that the effects of childhood exposure to lower socioeconomic status or conditions of poverty on health in old age may persist independently of upward social mobility in adulthood. Hence, children who grow up in poverty are more likely to present health problems during adulthood, while those who did not grow up in poverty have a higher probability of remaining healthy.

Another important consideration regards developmental mismatches [ 36 ]. Their article emphasizes how developmental and evolutionary mismatches impact the risk of diseases like diabetes. There could be a disparity between the early life environment and the one encountered in adulthood, turning adaptations that were once beneficial into risk factors for non-communicable diseases. High-calorie diets and sedentary lifestyles could trigger diabetes prevalence.

If these connections between early life and health in old age can be established firmly, it is expected that aging people in low and middle-income countries have another disadvantage regarding elders in developed countries, including a higher risk of developing health problems in old age and frequently multiple NCDs [ 26 ]. Under this context, the effective management of NCDs such as diabetes is crucial, and childhood living standards would be a variable to ponder [ 26 , 37 ]. Work related to the Life Course approach has emphasized the importance of considering socioeconomic aspects during childhood, including poverty [ 12 ] as a determinant of adult health status and its disparities [ 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 ].

Data and methods

Data source.

The Mexican Health and Aging Study (MHAS) is a national longitudinal survey of adults aged 50 years and over in Mexico. The baseline survey has national, urban, and rural representation of adults born in 1951 or earlier. It was conducted in 2001 with follow-up interviews in 2003, 2012, 2015, 2018 and 2021 [ 38 ]. New samples of adults were added in 2012 and 2018 to refresh the panel. The survey includes information on health measures (self-reports of conditions and functional status), background (education and childhood living conditions), family demographics, and economic measures. The MHAS (Mexican Health and Aging Study) is partly sponsored by the National Institutes of Health/National Institute on Aging (grant number NIH R01AG018016) in the United States and the Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (INEGI) in Mexico. Data files and documentation are public use and available at www.MHASweb.org .

In this research, the analysis was based on data from the survey conducted in 2018 (it was the most recent when the project started, later the 2021 survey became available). The study focused exclusively on participants who were aged 50 or older at the time of the 2018 survey. To minimize response bias, the study included only observations from direct interviewees, excluding proxy respondents, and particularly those who completed the section of the questionnaire pertaining to “Childhood Characteristics before the age of 10 years” Footnote 2 . Furthermore, to expand the sample size, individuals who first joined the survey during the 2012 cycle were identified, utilizing data from both the 2012 and 2018 surveys [ 39 ]. After locating the same individuals in both datasets, responses related to childhood conditions from the 2012 survey were extracted and integrated into the 2018 dataset. Biases in the samples were not found. This approach resulted in a total sample size of 8,082 observations.

In addition, we selected a suite of predictor variables to provide a comprehensive examination of the demographic, socioeconomic, and health-related characteristics within our sample (Table 1 ). The cohort consists of 8,082 participants with males exhibiting a marginally higher mean age (58.3 years) compared to females (56.7 years). In terms of educational achievement, males attained a slightly higher level of schooling, averaging 8.3 years, as opposed to 7.6 years for females.

Regarding the spatial distribution of the study population reveals that 1,717 individuals reside in areas with 2,500 inhabitants or fewer, indicating a rural setting, while the majority, 6,365 individuals, are found in regions with more than 2,500 inhabitants, suggesting an urban setting. Among the subjects, a significant number of males (23%) are located in the former, rural settings, which is higher than their female counterparts (19.7%). The data on living arrangements indicate notable gender differences, with 86% of males cohabiting with partners against 68.8% of females. The state of being single-a term here encompassing a spectrum of prior marital experiences but currently not cohabiting-is observed in 31.2% of females and 14% of males. The socioeconomic dimension is gauged using “proxy variables” such as the absence of poverty in adulthood and presence of childhood poverty, both of which are evenly represented across genders. Health-related self-reporting data reveals that females have a higher incidence of diagnosed diabetes (24.4%) compared to males (20.1%), and a larger percentage of females (26.6%) manage their diabetes with insulin. The propensity for medication use to control diabetes is high among both sexes, though more pronounced in females (91.5%) relative to males (85.3%). Additionally, obesity rates, determined by a Body Mass Index Footnote 3 of 30 or greater, are substantially elevated in females (34.8%) versus males (24.6%). Furthermore, a familial history of diabetes is slightly more prevalent in females, affecting 32.6% with diabetic mothers and 20% with diabetic fathers.

There is a serious concern about self-reporting medical conditions, to what extent this information is reliable. For [ 40 , 41 ] the validity and high accuracy of self-reported diagnosis of diabetes mellitus has been confirmed by previous research, and previous studies using WHO data have also used this question to evaluate diabetes mellitus [ 42 , 43 ].

For the survey employed in this paper, [ 44 ] confirm a correspondence between self-reported and objective measures. Nonetheless, [ 45 ] warn about true prevalence and this kind of reporting. In addition, the implications of relying on diagnosed diabetes, rather than total diabetes prevalence, include the potential under-representation of the condition’s true prevalence due to undiagnosed cases. Since the study’s analysis is based on self-reported data from the Mexican Health and Aging Study, it might not capture those individuals who are unaware of their condition [ 45 ]. The existence of statistical biases could be a potential limitation in the analysis.

Equally or even more troublesome is the problem of recalling conditions during childhood. While some factors (depression among others) can produce limited recalling [ 46 ], specific conditions are well recalled, if not their details and timing [ 47 ].

Regarding the age distribution, the sample is mostly concentrated in three groups: 67.6% for individuals between 50 and 59 years of age, followed by 29.6% for those between 60 and 69 years of age, and 2.5% for those between 70 and 79 years of age. On average, the educational level for women is 7.6 years of schooling while for men it is 8.2 years, which suggests an incomplete level of secondary education for both. On the other hand, from the total number of women in the sample (4,368), 24% of them indicated the presence of diabetes, and 20% of men in the sample (3,714) reported this condition. In addition, around 68% of women with diabetes reported being overweight or obese, for men this percentage was 69%. Meanwhile, 71.4% women with diabetes reported parental history of diabetes, for men this percentage was 68%. The next subsections describe the construction and identification of the key dependent and independent variables.

Dependent variable

The dependent variable is binary, which refers to the individual’s diagnosis of diabetes. This variable was taken from section C of the basic questionnaire of the MHAS 2018. The question is as follows: Has a doctor or medical professional ever told you that you have diabetes? If the answer is “yes” it was assigned a value of 1 and if the answer was “no”, a 0. The absence of answers was left empty, non-imputed. Regarding the individuals who reported being diagnosed with diabetes, 94.2% were taking medication or using insulin injections or pumps, and / or following a special diet to manage diabetes, without statistical differences when interchanging the samples.

Independent variables

For the explanatory variables of the model, sociodemographic, socioeconomic (“proxy” Footnote 4 of poverty in childhood and non-poverty in old age) Footnote 5 , and geographical variables were considered, as well as other variables related the parents of the interviewees. Given the difficulty of constructing a robust variable that reflects respondents’ income, internet access was considered as a proxy variable that would allow to ascertain the poverty status of the individual in old age. Several tests were performed for robustness Footnote 6 .

Internet access in Mexico is more common among relative well-off Mexicans than it was among the poorest sector of the population. Thus, according to [ 49 , 50 ], 7 out of 10 individuals from the highest income segment were internet users, while for the lowest income deciles, this was only 2 out of 10. Furthermore, a low level of schooling was related to internet access opportunities. Therefore, people who only received primary education were 4 times less likely to use the internet in Mexico.

Additionally, for the variable of poverty during childhood, a proxy was considered which corresponds to the answer of the question “Before you were 10 years old, did your home have an indoor toilet?” Footnote 7 , United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) collaborators [ 12 ], pointed out that the severe deprivation of sanitation facilities has critical long-term effects on various aspects of an infant. In this regard, UNICEF highlights the crucial importance of eradicating severe sanitation deprivation as a method to eradicate absolute child poverty, emphasizing that sanitation facilities should be a priority for children.

Statistical analysis

Linear Probability Models (LPM) define the probability:

They assume (require) that: i) \(Pr(Y=1 \mid X)\) is an increasing function in X for \(\beta _{0}>0\) , and ii) \(0 \le Pr(Y=1 \mid X) \le 1 \forall X\) .

This implies a cumulative distribution function that guarantees that for any value of the parameters of X , probabilities are well-defined, with values in the interval [0, 1].

The dependent variable to be explained is binary (diabetes diagnosis is 1 if the person has been diagnosed with diabetes and 0 for the person who has not been diagnosed with diabetes). Hence, a special class of regression models (with limited dependent variable), is considered. There are two probability models with these characteristics frequently used: the Logit model, and the Probit model. In relation to this, [ 48 ] points out that, theoretically, both models are very similar. A potential advantage of Probit models is they could feed other related inquiries. For example, when testing selection via Inverse Mill’s Ratios.

The Probit model is expressed as:

In the Probit model with multiple regressors, \(X_1,X_2,\ldots ,X_k\) , \(\phi (.)\) the cumulative standard normal distribution function is \(\phi (Z)=P(X\le z)\) , \(Z\sim N(0,1)\) .

Therefore, in ( 2 ) \(P(Y=1 \mid X_1,X_2,\ldots ,X_k )\) means the probability that an event occurs given the values of other explanatory variables, where Z is distributed as a standard normal \(Z\sim N(0,1)\) . While a series of tests could be performed in the model, two are critical for this investigation: the linearity between the independent variables and the underlying latent variable, and the normality of errors.

In ( 2 ), the coefficient \(\beta _{1}\) represents the change in z associated to a unit of change in \(X_1\) . It is then observed that, although the effect of z on a change is linear, the link between z and the dependent variable Y is not linear since \(\phi\) is a non-linear function of X . Therefore, the coefficients of X do not have a simple interpretation. In that sense, marginal effects must be calculated. Considering that in the linear regression model, the slope coefficient measures the change in the average value of the returned variable, due to a unit of change in the value of the regressor, maintaining the other variables constant. In these models, the slope coefficient directly measures the change in the probability of an event occurring, as a result of a unit change in the value of the regressor, holding all other variables constant, a discussion can be found at [ 51 ]. The \(\beta\) parameters are frequently estimated by maximum likelihood. The likelihood function is the joint probability distribution of the data treated as a function of the unknown coefficients Footnote 8 .

The maximum likelihood function is the conditional density of \(Y_1,\ldots ,Y_k\) given \(X_1,\ldots ,X_k\) as a function of the unknown parameters \(\beta\) . Thus, the Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) is the value of the parameters \(\beta\) that maximizes the maximum likelihood function. Hence, the MLE is the value of \(\beta\) that best describes the distribution of the data. In this regard and in large samples, the MLE is consistent, normally distributed, and efficient (it has the lowest variance among all the estimators). The \(\beta\) is solved by numerical methods. The resulting \({\hat{\beta }}\) is consistent, normally distributed, and asymptotically efficient.

A Probit model is proposed as follows. The dependent variable is diagnosed diabetes in adulthood correlated to several independent variables: sex, age, marital status, locality size, a dummy variable (to identify observations sourced from the 2012 survey wave, which is focused on childhood-related questions), obesity condition (Body Mass Index \(\ge\) 30), family history of diabetes, childhood poverty, no poverty in adulthood and the interaction of childhood poverty and no poverty in adulthood.

The variables should have analogous probability distributions and behave mutually independent. If errors violate the assumptions, the estimated values would be biased and inconsistent. Therefore, estimated values will also be shown with the Linear Probability Model.

In this type of model, \(y_i\) is a latent dependent variable that takes values of 1 if the person has been diagnosed with diabetes, that is, if individual i has a certain characteristic or quality and 0 otherwise; X is a set of explanatory variables that are assumed to be strictly exogenous, which implies that \(Cov\left[ x_i,\varepsilon _j\right] =0\ \forall\) the i individuals. In addition, the error term \(\varepsilon\) is assumed to be i . i . d . In this way, the probability of an event occurring given a set of explanatory variables is obtained:

In ( 1 ) G is a function that strictly takes values between 0 and 1, \(0<G(z)<1\) , for all real numbers z . As noted at the beginning of this section, in the Probit model, G represents a standardized normal cumulative distribution function given by:

Finally, to know the effects of the changes in the explanatory variables on the probability of the event occurring, a partial derivative can show that:

The term \(g\left( z\right)\) corresponds to a probability density function. Since the Probit model \(G\left( .\right)\) is a strictly positive cumulative distribution function, \(g\left( z\right) >0\ \forall \ z\) , the sign of the partial effect is the same as that of \(\beta _j\) .

This section reviews the factors associated with the probability of being diagnosed with diabetes for men and women and discusses their significance. Table  2 summarizes the main results of the Probit model.

Sociodemographic

Marginal effects on the dependent variable show that the age of individuals is highly significant with a positive correlation. This suggests that age is a factor leading to a higher probability (1%) of obtaining a diagnosis of diabetes, which could imply that as the person ages, the likelihood of developing diabetes increases. This result is consistent with studies conducted on the age-related decline in mitochondrial function, which in turn contributes to insulin resistance in old age. These conditions may foster the development of glucose intolerance and type 2 diabetes [ 53 , 54 ].

In addition, the outcomes indicate that women have an associated probability increase of 4% of suffering from this disease compared to men Footnote 9 . Regarding the differences by marital status, women and men living in a couple have a higher probability of being diagnosed with diabetes. In a study for Mexico using MHAS 2012, [ 45 ] found that being a woman and being married are significantly associated with a higher likelihood of self-reported diabetes Footnote 10 .

On the other hand, the results by size of locality suggest that individuals residing in urban areas have a non-negligible higher probability of suffering from diabetes compared to people living in rural locations. This is in line with the phenomenon of “nutritional transition”, which initially occurred in high-income countries and later in low-income countries, first in urban areas and then in rural areas [ 56 , 57 ]. For Mexico, [ 58 ] despite the prevalence of diabetes presents heterogeneous patterns, this condition is strongly greater in urban areas compared with rural areas.

Health and lifestyle

The results suggest a significant positive effect on the probability of diagnosis of diabetes for the individuals in the sample when the father and/or mother have this condition. In the case of a mother with diabetes, the associated probability of diabetes is 13%, while for a father with diabetes, it is 12%. Additionally, obesity is an important risk factor in the diagnosis of diabetes, the linked marginal effect of this comorbidity in the diagnosis of diabetes is 4%. In this regard, no significant differences were found by sex or locality size Footnote 11 .

Socioeconomic

The findings indicate a lower probability that individuals are diagnosed with diabetes if during adulthood they are not poor (-5%). On the other hand, from the interaction of the variables poverty in childhood and non-poverty in old age, a considerable positive effect is observed. This suggests that when the individual was poor in childhood, despite no longer poor in adulthood, the probability associated with the diagnosis of diabetes is positive and significant. Thus, it is possible that conditions of poverty in childhood influence the development of this disease later in life Footnote 12 . While this is a correlation, the fact that an interaction of socioeconomic characteristics has bigger linear effect than a key biological characteristic (obesity) is non trivial, and reinforces the importance of life course analysis.

Social mobility, defined as the change in an individual’s socioeconomic status relative to their parents or over their lifetime, is a crucial metric for assessing equal opportunity-a measure of whether people have the same chances to achieve success regardless of their initial socioeconomic position. Our study aligns with the broader evidence [ 65 , 66 ], suggesting that those from disadvantaged backgrounds often face significant barriers to socioeconomic advancement Footnote 13 .

A compelling finding of this paper, refers how poverty conditions during childhood remain an important risk factor associated with the greater probability of being diagnosed with diabetes during adulthood in Mexico. Despite these circumstances do not determine the diagnosis of diabetes in older adults, they have a strong correlation with the ailment. On the other hand, even when individuals have not experienced poverty during childhood, but it occurs during adulthood, the probability associated with the diagnosis of diabetes increases. Not surprisingly, the probability of being diagnosed with diabetes scales when the person was poor in both stages. These effects are persistent for men and women, although for women the associated probability was higher than for men. Likewise, there is a positive and high correlation of the parents’ history of diabetes and the obesity condition on the probability of developing this disease. Biological aspects could be present, but also modifiable factors, with the generational transmission of elements related to lifestyle (eating habits and physical activity). Similarly, people who live with a partner have a higher associated probability of being diagnosed with diabetes. The literature suggests that this is due to the tendency of individuals to select spouses based on the preference for similar phenotype characteristics and the convergence of their behaviors and lifestyle. Moreover, these issues have been exacerbated by urbanization processes and by the “food transition” Footnote 14 that has made processed and ultra-processed products more and more accessible. Such products are characterized by being high in fat, salt, and sugar. Regarding the effect of the size of the locality on the probability of being diagnosed with diabetes, the results show differences for people residing in rural and urban areas. In urban localities, the associated probability is higher compared to rural ones. Likewise, aging is an important factor that affects the probability of suffering from diabetes: as the individual ages, the probability of developing this disease increases.

In terms of the analysis and empirical strategy used, the findings show valuable relationships. Aligned with efforts to improve the accuracy and reliability of health data by combining biomarkers and objective measurements with self-reported data [ 70 ], biomarkers in the survey were employed. These biomarkers were used for diabetes (the dependent variable) and obesity condition (as one of the independent variables) in the model of Results  section. The results are consistent with the previous findings (See Appendix ).

There is ample space for additional work and get over the limitations of this work. For example, being MHAS a longitudinal survey, an econometric model can be developed in order to explore (test) causal relationships among the extensive set of variables. Also self-reporting could present different types of biases. While the use of biomarkers was an important robustness test, calculating bounds and checking selection biases would be valuable. Moreover, the survey also captures information related to social protection variables and social programs transfers, which could be useful for testing policies.

Given the interconnection of childhood conditions and the importance of these in the development of adult capacities and their success in their future life, they should be considered within the design and formulation of public policies and programs. The policies should focus and prioritize objectives of reducing the inequality gaps and pre-existing poverty in the country. Adopting measures to reduce inequalities in the social sphere is essential to protect future generations. In this sense, it is important to act on the Social Determinants of Health throughout the course of life in a broader social and economic context. Acting on the SDH would improve prospects for health and generate considerable social benefits that would allow people to achieve their capabilities and reduce the intergenerational perpetuation of inequalities. Thus, the SDH together with the Life Course approach, provide a sensible framework to identify risk clusters that can be broken in periods of effective interventions (e.g. childhood), as well as to improve the design of public policies on population aging and health, from a perspective focused on the well-being and quality of life of the Mexican population.

In this way, and to face the demographic transition and the diabetes epidemic in Mexico, comprehensive public policies that consider interventions from childhood will be required to reduce inequality and poverty. For some years now, the WHO has emphasized the importance and role of the inclusion of long-term care policies and programs focused on older adults. The forecasts in case of untimely acting indicate a significant negative effect on the social, economic and health structures for the coming years.

Finally, despite the increase of older population, much of the research on the effects of socioeconomic conditions on health is concentrated in economically active populations, and those ignore older people, and pay restricted attention to long term factors such as childhood conditions. The results presented in this document contribute to studies on population aging and public health. Evidence is found with respect to health determinants in a demographic group that is growing rapidly and not sufficiently considered.

Availability of data and materials

Data files and documentation are public use and available at www.MHASweb.org . Data and code used during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Social Determinants of Health. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/health-topics/social-determinants-of-health#tab=tab_1 . Accessed on January 22, 2024.

Given the survey design, people responding the childhood questionnaire are new participants.

A Body Mass Index (BMI) was constructed considering the variables of height and weight reported in the MHAS 2018 survey (C6: “What is your current weight in kilograms?”, C67: “What is your height without shoes in meters?”). For adults, the World Health Organization (WHO) defines overweight as a BMI of 25 or higher, and obesity as a BMI of 30 or higher. BMI was calculated by dividing a person’s weight in kilograms by the square of their height in meters (kilograms/m 2 ).This information is available at: https://www.who.int/es/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/obesity-and-overweight , accessed on January 10, 2024.

In this context, the term “proxy”, was employed to describe variables that serve as stand-ins for factors that are not directly observable within our dataset. As noted by [ 48 ].

Numerous variables that could reflect household income were tested, but since they were self-reported and not part of the survey’s core, there is a large number of missing values.

We thank one referee for her suggestions regarding education years.

This question is found in section J.18 of the basic questionnaire and corresponds to the question “Does this home have ... internet?” If the person answers “yes”, that means that they have internet service and were assigned a value of 1, and 0 if the person does not have this service.

There is an interesting possibility of comparing the linear marginal effects with direct estimations from a Logit model (risk differences), [ 52 ]. We thank a referee for pointing this out.

This is consistent with what was stated in Aging in Mexico: The Most Vulnerable Adults of the MHAS Newsletter: May 20-2, 2020, which indicates that women are more likely to report diabetes than men. Retrieved from http://www.enasem.org/images/ENASEM-20-2-Aging_In_Mexico_AdutosMasVulnerables_2020.pdf . Accessed on February 10, 2024.

Furthermore, Danish researchers found a connection between the Body Mass Index of one spouse and the other spouse’s risk of developing type 2 diabetes. According to this study, spouses tend to be similar in terms of body weight, as people often tend to marry someone similar to themselves and share dietary and exercise habits when living together [ 55 ].

It has long been known that type 2 diabetes is, in part, hereditary. Family studies have revealed that first-degree relatives of people with type 2 diabetes are approximately 3 times more likely to develop the disease than people without a positive family history of the disease [ 59 , 60 , 61 ]. Likewise, in a study for Mexico, [ 62 ] point out that obesity and a history of type 2 diabetes in parents and genes play an important role in the development of type 2 diabetes. Furthermore, [ 63 ], points out that the frequency of diabetes mellitus also varies between different races and ethnicities.

This is consistent with the research by [ 64 ] who find that the conditions in which the person lived at the age of 10 affect health in old age.

According to [ 67 ] in a regional analysis on the degree of social mobility in Mexico, it indicates that social mobility is higher than the national average in the North and Central North regions, similar to the national average in the Central region, and lower than the average in the South region. In particular, it notes that children of poor parents made above-average progress if they grew up in the northern region, and less than average progress if they grew up in the southern region.

The country’s food environment has been transformed; it is becoming easier to access unhealthy products. In this sense, for the last 40 years, important changes have been observed in the Mexican diet, mainly from fresh and unprocessed foods to processed and ultra-processed products with a high content of sugar, salt, and fat. Marrón-Ponce et al. [ 68 ], point out that in 2016 around 23.1% of the energy in the Mexican population’s diet came from ultra-processed products, even though the WHO recommendations suggest that at most, this percentage should present between 5 and 10% of total energy per day. In addition, Mexico is the worldwide largest consumer of sugary beverages; its consumption represents approximately 10% of the total daily energy intake in adults and children and constitutes 70% of the total added sugar in the diet [ 69 ].

The study incorporates biomarkers to evaluate health conditions related to diabetes and obesity. Glycosylated hemoglobin results are employed as an indicator of diabetes [ 71 ], with a value equal to or exceeding 6.5% signifying a positive diagnosis (coded as “1”), while values below this threshold are coded as “0”, indicating the absence of the condition. Concurrently, Body Mass Index (BMI) is calculated from weight and height measurements to determine obesity, with a BMI of 30 or more classified as obese. These biomarkers provide quantifiable and reliable means of assessing the presence of these two critical health issues within the study’s population.

Abbreviations

Mexican Health and Aging Study

non-communicable diseases

Social Determinants of Health

World Health Organization

Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development

National Institute of Statistics and Geography

United Nations Children’s Fund

Low and middle-income countries

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MGS (Marina Gonzalez-Samano) contributed to the design of the study and the final document with guidance and conceptual insights from HJV (Hector J. Villarreal). MGS and HJV carried out the search, analysed the documents and wrote the first draft of the article. All authors were involved in the conception of the research, revisions and editing of the article. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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For robustness testing a model specification was employed where self-reported diabetes and obesity measures are substituted with biomarkers obtained from the MHAS 2012. Table 3 summarizes the main results of the Probit model.

The analytical results from Table  2 (Model 1), and those derived from the utilization of biomarkers in Table 3 (Model 2) exhibit a considerable likeness, especially in the context of diabetes and obesity indicators. Notably, there is a significant reduction in the sample size when biomarkers Footnote 15 are introduced, which might account for the increased standard errors observed in Table 3. Consequently, certain variables such as: being “woman”, “living with a couple” and “residing in an urban locality”, have lost statistical significance in the biomarker analysis. Despite these differences, the general conclusions derived from this specification remain consistent with those presented in Model 1 (Table  2 ). Moreover, the linear effect of the interaction effect of poverty in childhood with no poverty in adulthood is bigger with the biomarker specification. Nonetheless, the larger confidence intervals need to be considered.

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Gonzalez-Samano, M., Villarreal, H. Diabetes, life course and childhood socioeconomic conditions: an empirical assessment for Mexico . BMC Public Health 24 , 1274 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-024-18767-5

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