Increasing transparency: Utilising criterion-referenced assessment to enhance student learning in public relations

Abstract

The central role of assessment in the learning and teaching environment is well
recognised. Educators face growing demands to improve student
understanding of and performance in assessment items (Marginson, 1997;
Rust, Price & O’Donovan, 2003). At an institutional level, a number of
universities have responded to these demands by reviewing assessment
paradigms in order to better demonstrate transparency and accountability in the
setting and marking of assessment items (Neil, Wadley & Phinn, 1999; Rust et
al, 2003). One of the paradigms being adopted by universities is criterionreferenced
assessment (CRA). CRA involves designing assessment tasks in
line with subject goals, identifying skills to be demonstrated within an
assessment task, assigning relative weights to, and describing each relative
skill/criterion (Carlson, MacDonald, Gorely, Hanrahan, & Burgess-Limerick,
2000).
CRA has a number of advantages including the ability for students to target
their performance against pre-determined standards and be judged as an
individual rather than against a normative performance (Neil et al, 1999). A
United Kingdom study of CRA showed significant improvement in performance
by motivated students (O’Donovan, Price & Rust, 2001; Rust et al, 2003).
However, other educators suggest that CRA limits student experimentation,
creativity and originality (Hay, 1995).
With the goals of increasing transparency and encouraging assessment for
learning, CRA was introduced into an undergraduate introductory public
relations unit with an enrolment of 290 students. Student research was
undertaken to explore the success of the new assessment paradigm and to
identify how students used the CRA approach to enhance their learning. The
findings of this study show strong use of and support for CRA, with students
using the assessment processes to identify their strengths and weaknesses
and develop techniques to improve their performance in future assessment
tasks.