Érudit's RSS Feed

Special Issue of Imagining SoTL on “Reassessing Assessment”

Kimberley A. Grant, Derritt Mason, Austin J. Ashbaugh and Erika E. Smith

Assessment Purposes, Practices, and Discourses: Learnings from a Conceptual Review of Literature

Muhammad Adil Arshad, Natasha Kenny and Barbara Brown
There is an increased focus on the assessment of student learning, particularly as postsecondary institutions are orienting towards principle-based assessment policies and practices. We conducted a conceptual review of the literature to identify the purposes, practices, and discourses surrounding the assessment of student learning. The review of 34 publications offers valuable insights into the assessment landscape, emphasizing the shift towards approaches such as the assessment for learning, assessment as learning and empowerment, and learning-oriented assessments. A few emergent themes included authentic assessment practices, engaging students as partners in assessment, online and digital assessment strategies, strengthening feedback pathways, supporting student and educator mental health and well-being, academic integrity, generative artificial intelligence, and ethical, inclusive, and equitable assessment. We invite instructors and educational leaders to consider contemporary purposes, practices, and discourses for the assessment of student learning and explore ways to enhance assessment processes and practices in their respective institutional contexts.

Building Validity Evidence for Performance-Based Assessments: A Review and Reconceptualization of Response Process Validity of Raters in Veterinary Medicine

Laureen P. Hall and Kent G. Hecker
Performance-based assessments (PBAs) are essential tools in veterinary medical education for evaluating students’ clinical and professional competencies. This reflection on assessment is grounded in the first author’s experience as a veterinary educator navigating the complexities of PBAs and in the second author’s experience as a psychometrician studying validity claims about raters’ cognitive processes as they use PBAs. By integrating personal insights with existing literature, this work contributes to the ongoing discourse on assessment design and defensibility in health professional education. Our aim is to highlight the need to explore how rater response processes influence assessment outcomes and to advocate for more robust, contextually relevant validity evidence in veterinary medical education.While multiple sources of validity evidence are needed to support decisions based on PBA scores, the response processes of raters—how they interpret and apply assessment criteria—remain underexplored in health profession education. Without this type of evidence, the defensibility of assessment scores, as well as the decisions based on them, may be compromised. We argue that understanding rater decision making is crucial for strengthening the validity argument of PBAs.

Enhancing French Proficiency With Equitable and Personalized Assessments

Miao Li, Shweta Soni, Sarah Joseph and Xavier Ahodetor
This study examines the impact of three complementary assessment strategies on French language proficiency: standardized evaluation based on the Diplôme d'Études en Langue Française (DELF), personalized verbal feedback, and structured self-reflection. These methods were designed to foster equitable, inclusive, and accessible learning experiences while leveraging research on spaced repetition and retrieval-based learning to strengthen retention and mastery. The project supported diverse learner profiles and prepared students for advanced-level French coursework, targeting competencies in reception, production, interaction, and mediation. Findings indicate that DELF principles—criteria aligned with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, authentic communicative tasks, and transparent rubrics—can be adapted beyond formal testing to enrich daily instruction and promote fairness. Personalized verbal feedback enhances learner motivation and engagement. Structured self-reflection tools foster metacognitive awareness and autonomy. These methods were embedded within an instructional model integrating authentic tests, inquiry-based individualized feedback, and backward design principles within self-paced online modules via the Desire2Learn (D2L) platform. Although focused on language education, these strategies demonstrate strong potential for broader contexts, reframing assessment as a dynamic, learner-driven process that promotes continuous development rather than serving solely as a summative measure.

Reassessing Course Outlines for Kindness and Transparency: Some Considerations and Strategies

Jaclyn Carter, Lorelei Anselmo, Muhammad Adil Arshad, Sreyasi Biswas, Patti Dyjur, Kimberley A. Grant, Erika E. Smith and Fouzia Usman
In a workshop at the 2025 University of Calgary Conference on Postsecondary Learning and Teaching, Catherine Denial demonstrated how her efforts towards learning-focussed kindness are not just philosophical, but also evident in how she shapes her course outlines. As we reflected on this experience, we found ourselves connecting Denial’s work on learning-focused kindness with Winkelmes’ (2019) framework, Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT). Here, we propose that together these principles of a pedagogy of kindness and TILT offer thoughtful, pragmatic lenses through which instructors can reflect on assessment design and write their course outlines to support student learning. To do so, we offer several practical strategies for applying the principles of kindness and transparent assessment—from the perspectives of constructive alignment, inclusivity, mental health and well-being, and academic integrity—and provide suggestions for how to communicate them in ways that are consistent with evidence-based best practices of teaching. Not every example will fit in every teaching and learning context, nor will the examples provided address each of these areas exhaustively, but we offer them as starting points for instructors who would like to take steps towards incorporating greater kindness and transparency in their course outlines.

Reflections on Cultural Portfolios: Reassessing Assessment Through Student Voice and Agency in Language Education

Angela George, Rachel Friedman and Eleonora Buonocore
This reflection explores the design and implementation of cultural learning portfolios as alternative assessments in undergraduate language courses. Responding to tensions between traditional assessment practices and the complex, lived nature of language-and-culture learning, we replaced standardized tests and essays with reflective, multimodal portfolios. These portfolios allowed students to engage with cultural experiences of their choosing and demonstrate growth through multilingual and cross-cultural reflection. Drawing on theoretical frameworks from relational and participatory pedagogy (Gachago et al., 2022) and plurilingual assessment (Bonvino & Cortés Velásquez, 2024), we illustrate how portfolios reposition students as co-constructors of knowledge. Through survey data (Likert-scale and open-ended questions) and interviews with students in Arabic, German, Italian, and Spanish courses, we reflect on how this assessment model reshaped our understanding of what meaningful assessment can look like in language education. Rather than offering a prescriptive model, we share insights from our experience. Both the successes and challenges invite continued dialogue about assessment as a relational, reflective, evolving practice.

Reflection on Practice: Designing Effective Online Discussion Forums Through the Lens of Universal Design for Learning

WanQi (Belinda) Jin and Armando Paulino Preciado Babb
Asynchronous online discussion forums (AODFs) are widely used in hybrid and online post-secondary courses to promote collaborative learning and assess students’ knowledge building. This reflective essay explores how AODFs can be effectively designed and implemented as purposeful assessment tools that accommodate diverse students’ needs while enhancing the overall learning experience. Guided by the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework, this essay outlines strategies for creating inclusive, accessible, and engaging AODFs that promote meaningful interactions among students and between students and instructors. Drawing on current research and our reflections, the paper demonstrates how the principles of UDL—multiple means of engagement, representation, and action/expression—can transform AODFs into dynamic spaces for collaboration, reflection, and knowledge co-construction. It concludes with recommendations for aligning assessment design with learning goals and professional practice, emphasizing the importance of formative assessment, workload management, and equitable participation. This paper provides practical strategies for instructors, instructional designers, and anyone involved in developing online and blended learning environments in post-secondary education to design effective AODFs assessments that foster students’ deeper learning and meaningful interactions.

Assessing Conflict Resolution Skills: Tensions and Opportunities

Marnie Jull
In graduate-level courses that include conflict resolution as a core component, assessing conflict-engagement competencies of mid-career professionals presents several challenges. Educators must identify which competencies to emphasize while designing assignments and assessments that respect the cultures, professional backgrounds, and neurodiverse learning profiles of learners. This reflective paper explores the tensions and opportunities that educators can encounter when designing assignments and assessments that move beyond surface-level evaluation towards fostering deeper, more adaptive capacities for conflict engagement. Framed through a practitioner-inquiry lens, it highlights assignments and assessments that can engage learners to identify and develop conflict competencies that are appropriate for their personal and professional contexts. In doing so, it positions assessment alongside conflict engagement as evolving, messy, iterative, and deeply human processes.

Pluralism in Practice: Creative Assessment for Deep, Inclusive, and Joyful Learning

Chelsea Rozanski and Vienna Hackl
How can assessment be reimagined to better support student creativity, critical thinking, and well-being? This paper argues that innovative, pluralistic strategies offer powerful, but often underutilized, pathways for deep learning in higher education. Drawing on examples from interdisciplinary university classrooms, it demonstrates how creative formats such as photography, food-making, visual arts, and performance enable students to showcase their understanding in culturally relevant, multimodal, and intellectually rigorous ways. Grounded in educational pluralism, Universal Design for Learning, and equity-focused pedagogy, the paper contends that creative assessments need not replace conventional methods; rather, they can complement and strengthen them by broadening what counts as valid evidence of learning. The paper also addresses common misconceptions about creative assessment—including concerns about consistency, scalability, and disciplinary fit—and illustrates how transparent guidelines, scaffolded preparation, and choice can uphold fairness while expanding student agency. By reframing assessment—both formative and summative—as a relational and meaning-making practice, the authors invite educators to see creativity not as an exception, but as an integral dimension of inclusive, high-quality teaching. Ultimately, this paper offers both conceptual framing and practical strategies for reimagining assessment as a space of justice, care, and shared intellectual discovery.

Incomplete by Design: Notes Around Late SoTL

Matthew Parker
This article examines how assessment in SoTL is shaped not only by methodological rigour but also by the aesthetic forms through which knowledge becomes recognizable. Drawing on architectural theory, it introduces the concept of lateness to describe a condition in which established scholarly forms remain operative while revealing their own limits. Lateness names a moment of reflective mastery, when disciplinary practices become self-aware enough to see how their familiar patterns both sustain and constrain what can be recognized as learning.The paper argues that assessment is inseparable from questions of appearance, legibility, and recognition. Elements such as structure, pacing, citation, and presentation quietly shape evaluative judgments, often in advance of explicit criteria. Through a close reading of SoTL’s evaluative norms and a pedagogical case drawn from an experimental elective, the article shows how openness to multiple methods can solidify into narrow aesthetic expectations.Rather than proposing alternative metrics and assessment tools, the paper explores the conditions under which learning becomes visible and valued in the first place. By reframing assessment as an aesthetic and epistemological practice, lateness offers a way to remain attentive to forms of learning that do not resolve neatly, without converting indeterminacy into failure.

Erratum to: Hall, L. P., & Hecker, K. G. (2026). Building validity evidence for performance-based assessments: A review and reconceptualization of response processes validity of raters in veterinary medicine. Imagining SoTL, 6(1), 29-40. https://doi.org/10.29173/isotl910

Laureen P. Hall and Kent G. Hecker