Conceptualising assessment-as-learning

Full text

Part I
Revisiting assessment-as-
learning from new
perspectives
BK-TandF-YAN_9780367509972-210188-Chp02.indd 9 14/05/21 5:32 PM

BK-TandF-YAN_9780367509972-210188-Chp02.indd 10 14/05/21 5:32 PM

Conceptualising
assessment-as-learning
Zi Yan and David Boud
2
Introduction
Despite the frequent use of the term assessment-as-learning in research and prac-
tice, there is a lack of consensus about its denition and unique characteristics
that differentiate it from other assessment approaches. Such a vague concep-
tualisation is a constraint for communication and advancement of research in
this eld. This chapter rst reviews the attempts to conceptualise assessment-
as-learning in higher education and school education, and then proposes a new
denition of assessment-as-learning, drawing insights from both sectors, as
well as the associated implications. Then, the concept of assessment-as-learn-
ing is contrasted with and distinguished from other relevant concepts, such as
assessment-for-learning, self and peer assessment, sustainable assessment, and
self-regulated learning. Finally, the critique of assessment-as-learning as encour-
aging instrumentalism is analysed and discussed.
The evolution of the concept “assessment-as-learning”
Fundamentally, assessment is about making judgements about students’ learn-
ing on the basis of evidence. These judgements are made for different purposes,
sometimes by different parties. The distinctions between assessment-of-learning
(primarily judgements of what a student has nally achieved), assess-
ment-for-learning (primarily judgements to aid students on their path towards
meeting learning outcomes), and assessment-as-learning (primarily assessment
that has value as a learning task in its own right) have been intensively discussed
in the literature. The rst of these, assessment-of-learning has been implemented
and studied for over one thousand years (e.g., the Chinese imperial examina-
tions, Keju). However, the latter two, especially assessment-as-learning, have a
more recent history.
The distinction between assessment-of-learning and assessment-for-learning
was boosted by the adoption of the terms summative and formative assessment,
following the introduction of these terms by Michael Scriven (1967) in the
original context of curriculum evaluation. These two terms have been well estab-
lished in education for nearly half a century. The rst widespread use of the term
BK-TandF-YAN_9780367509972-210188-Chp02.indd 11 14/05/21 5:32 PM
Suggested citation:
Yan, Z., & Boud, D. (2021). Conceptualising assessment-as-learning. In Z. Yan, & L. Yang (Eds.), Assessment as learn-
ing: Maximising opportunities for student learning and achievement (pp. 11-24). New York: Routledge.

12 Assessment as learning
assessment-as-learning that we have identied appeared at Alverno College in
the United States. Alverno College has been pioneer in developing assessment-
as-learning and outcomes-oriented approaches in higher education from the
1970s. Since 1976, they have provided workshops based on their experiences
and research with assessment-as-learning to audiences around the world. In
1979, the College published an assessment book entitled “Assessment at Alverno
College”. In 1994, a third edition was published with a slightly different title
as “Student Assessment-as-Learning at Alverno College” (Alverno College,
1994). Alverno College, in the context of an outcomes-oriented curriculum,
dened assessment-as-learning as a balance between formative and summative
assessment,
as a process … integral to learning, that involves observation, analysis/
interpretation, and judgment of each student’s performance on the basis of
explicit, public criteria, with self-assessment and resulting feedback to the
student. It serves to conrm student achievement and provide feedback to
the student for the improvement of learning and to the instructor for the
improvement of teaching. (Mentkowski, 2006, p. 48)
Later, the idea of assessment-as-learning was taken up in the context of school
education and gained more attention in pedagogical applications. Ruth Dann
and Lorna M. Earl made a timely promotion of assessment-as-learning by
writing a book spreading the idea to academia and practitioners. Dann (2002)
argued that
assessment is not merely an adjunct to teaching and learning but offers a
process through which pupil involvement in assessment can feature as part
of learning – that is, assessment-as-learning. (p. 153)
Earl (2006) dened
Assessment-as-learning is a process of developing and supporting metacogni-
tion for students. Assessment-as-learning focusses on the role of the student
as the critical connector between assessment and learning. When students
are active, engaged, and critical assessors, they make sense of information,
relate it to prior knowledge, and use it for new learning. This is the regula-
tory process in metacognition. It occurs when students monitor their own
learning and use the feedback from this monitoring to make adjustments,
adaptations, and even major changes in what they understand. It requires
that teachers help students develop, practise, and become comfortable with
reection, and with a critical analysis of their own learning. (pp. 13–14)
Since then, the pedagogical applications of assessment-as-learning have become
more popular, and many researchers joined the discussion and dissemination of
the idea. For example, Berry (2008) commended that
BK-TandF-YAN_9780367509972-210188-Chp02.indd 12 14/05/21 5:32 PM

Conceptualising assessment-as-learning 13
Assessment associated with metacognition aims to enable learners to
become autonomous learners. It requires that learners to be aware of what is
required from them and monitor and assess their own learning during the
learning process. With the information obtained, they can regulate their
learning to meet the goals they set earlier. This view of assessment stresses
the learner’s active role in learning. This kind of assessment is referred to as
Assessment-as-learning (AaL). (p. 11)
Parallel to scholarly discussions, some education authorities have emphasised
assessment-as-learning. Not surprisingly, education authorities usually under-
stand assessment-as-learning from a practical perspective. For example, New
South Wales Education Standards Authority (n.d.) states that:
Assessment-as-learning occurs when students are their own assessors.
Students monitor their own learning, ask questions and use a range of strat-
egies to decide what they know and can do, and how to use assessment
information for new learning.
Hong Kong Curriculum Development Council (2017) explicitly encourages
schools to integrate assessment-as-learning into the learning and teaching circle
and argues that:
Assessment-as-learning engages students in reecting on and monitoring
their progress of learning through establishing their roles and responsi-
bilities in relation to their learning and assessment. Students use feedback
from reection and monitoring to make adaptations and adjustments to the
learning objectives and strategies. (Chapter 4, p. 6)
A new denition of assessment-as-learning
The available attempts to conceptulise assessment-as-learning, no matter from
theoretical perspectives (e.g., Berry, 2008; Dann, 2002; Earl, 2006; Mentkowski,
2006) or from practical perspectives (e.g., Hong Kong Curriculum Development
Council, 2017; New South Wales Education Standards Authority, n.d.), mainly
emphasise either the role of assessment-as-learning in supporting self-regulated
learning or students’ active role in the assessment process, but do not speak to
what happens to assessment per se. Although common assessment-as-learning
practices (such as self and peer assessment) have been widely seen in classrooms,
the development of a clear theorisation of assessment-as-learning regarding the
nature of assessment-as-learning falls behind. As a response, we propose a de-
nition of assessment-as-learning as:
Assessment that necessarily generates learning opportunities for students
through their active engagement in seeking, interrelating, and using
evidence.
BK-TandF-YAN_9780367509972-210188-Chp02.indd 13 14/05/21 5:32 PM

14 Assessment as learning
This of course implies an assessment requires students to go beyond recalling
their prior knowledge. This denition draws on traditions of assessment-as-
learning from both higher education and school education. It highlights three
key points relating to the nature of assessment-as-learning:
1 Its purpose is to promote learning as well as making judgements about stu-
dents’ performance. In this sense, assessment-as-learning is a learning strat-
egy enacted in the form of assessment. It encompasses both formative and
summative features.
2 It requires students to learn from engagement with the assessment task itself
as well as activities associated with it (e.g., interpreting assessment criteria,
seeking and using feedback, etc.).
3 It requires students to take an active and reective role and thus foster
metacognition and self-regulation.
The denition also has ve major implications in learning and teaching that are
elaborated as follow.
Firstly, assessment-as-learning is a purpose that can be considered for all
assessment designs, including assessment-for-learning and assessment-of-learn-
ing. Assessment of/for/as learning are frequently treated as quite separate
purposes of assessment. The relationship among them is not that simple though.
As the essential part of assessment-as-learning is to provide learning oppor-
tunities for students through their engagement with assessment, it enables
assessment-as-learning to be a foundation for both assessment-for-learning and
assessment-of-learning, as argued by Earl (2003). In other words, no matter
whether the main purpose of an assessment is to generate data to inform subse-
quent learning and teaching (for learning), or to report students’ achievement
in a particular period (of learning), how to inspire and facilitate students’ learn-
ing through the assessment activity should always be an important aspect of
the assessment design. The relationship between assessment and learning in the
three assessment approaches could be understood in this way: assessment-as-
learning plays as an “assessment while learning” pattern, while assessment-
for-learni ng can be s een as an “as sessment then lear ning” pat tern, and a ssessment-of-
learning as an “assessment after learning” (see Figure 2.1).
Secondly, assessment-as-learning means avoiding assessment tasks that are
designed only to enable others to judge students’ learning outcomes. If they
don’t also contribute to building students’ capacity to learn, other than in antic-
ipation of assessment, they are insufcient. To make assessment not merely an
adjunct but an integral part to learning (Dann, 2002; Mentkowski, 2006), the
assessment task should be seen as a method for connecting prior, current, and
future learning. In assessment-as-learning, completing the assessment tasks is a
necessary but not sufcient condition for learning. Assessment tasks that merely
seek to capture students’ achievements to date may not fully utilise what are
often limited opportunities for learning.
Thirdly, while assessment-as-learning may aid short-term learning, its focus
is more on developing students’ capacity for longer-term learning and building
BK-TandF-YAN_9780367509972-210188-Chp02.indd 14 14/05/21 5:32 PM

Conceptualising assessment-as-learning 15
evaluative judgment that facilitate their ongoing learning. This is compatible with
the spirit of self-regulated learning and life-long learning because, after gradua-
tion, students need to be capable of continuing learning and making informed
decisions based on their evaluative judgment of the quality of their own work
and that of others. That is, assessment-as-learning tasks contribute to sustaina-
ble assessment and the development of students’ evaluative judgements (Boud,
2000; Boud & Soler, 2016; Tai, Ajjawi, Boud, Dawson, & Panadero, 2018).
Fourthly, assessment-as-learning provides a good vehicle for the use of
authentic tasks, which are akin to activities undertaken in real life settings.
Authentic assessment tasks not only enhance students’ motivation and engage-
ment, but also provide opportunities for student to solve real life problems that
are more meaningful to student development (e.g., Villarroel, Bloxham, Bruna,
& Herrera-Seda, 2018).
Fifthly, in assessment-as-learning, tasks are needed to be judged primarily
in terms of the consequential validity of the task and the capacity of students
to learn from the task. Assessment-as-learning needs to be considered rst as a
learning strategy then in terms of an assessment device. Assessment metrics are
still important, but the consequences for learning are paramount. To make the
assessment task a worthwhile learning activity, what it is expected that students
will learn from the task must be identied as well as how student performance
is to be judged.
Relation with and distinction from relevant concepts
Assessment-as-learning and ma ny other relevant assessment concepts share a com-
mon tenet, i.e., using assessment to support learning. Based on our denition,
we contrast assessment-as-learning with and distinguish it from other apparently
similar assessment and learning concepts, such as assessment-for-learning, self
and peer assessment, sustainable assessment, and self-regulated learning.
Figure 2.1 The relationship between learning and assessment in assessment of/for/as
learning.
BK-TandF-YAN_9780367509972-210188-Chp02.indd 15 14/05/21 5:32 PM

16 Assessment as learning
Assessment-as-learning and assessment-for-learning
Some authors (e.g., Earl, 2006, 2013) considered assessment-as-learning as a
subset of assessment-for-learni ng, which simplies t he role of assessment-as-lear n-
ing. Some authors (e.g., Berry, 2008) differentiate assessment-as-learning from
assessment-for-learning by whether learners or teachers take the dominant role
in the assessment process. Although assessment-for-learning usually requires
teachers to lead and students to play a more active role in assessment-as-learning,
that is not a dening characteristic because it is desirable for students to play an
active role in assessment-for-learning as well.
The dening quality of assessment-as-learning is that it necessarily requires
students to learn potentially new knowledge from their engagement with the
task itself as well as the accompanying assessment processes. This is often not a
requirement in assessment-for-learning events which may tend to focus on learn-
ing what is required for the subsequent test. The Assessment Reform Group
(2002) dened assessment-for-learning as “the process of seeking and interpret-
ing evidence for use by learners and their teachers to decide where the learners
are in their learning, where they need to go and how best to get there”. This
denition implies that what counts in assessment-for-learning is whether it gen-
erates useful information or data used by teachers and students for subsequent
teaching and learning. As pointed out by Swafeld (2011), such a denition
does not see assessment-for-learning itself as a learning process and does not
capture the feature of constructivist thinking, metacognitive, and social lean-
ing elements. Thus, the core element of assessment-for-learning, and where
its power often comes from, is the feedback incorporated into a task. Hence,
assessment-for-learning heavily relies on assessment outcomes (i.e., evidence
of learning) on which external feedback inputs (for example, from teachers)
could be formulated and processed by students for subsequent action. In con-
trast, assessment-as-learning does not primarily depend on external feedback,
although feedback can still be an important element for assessment-as-learning.
The learning prompted by assessment-as-learning happens throughout the pro-
cess of seeking, interrelating, and using learning evidence (e.g., determining
assessment criteria, seeking feedback, reection, etc.). It prompts forms of inter-
nal or self-feedback (Nicol, 2020) during the process. In assessment-as-learning,
when the act of assessment starts, learning necessarily begins.
One illustration of this is when students generate assessment tasks for them-
selves. Yeong, Chin, and Tan (2020) designed an interesting assignment for
a group of second-year Life Sciences undergraduates by asking them to cre-
ate four multiple-choice questions in line with the learning topics. Similarly,
Hancock, Hare, Denny, and Denyer (2018), in their large rst year Molecular
Biology course, asked students to generate multiple-choice questions, and then
answer one another’s questions. While both assignments are assessments, they
could also be thought of as meaningful learning processes. Yeong et al. (2020)
observed a high level of academic engagement among their students; while
Hancock et al. (2018) found improved performance on test questions targeting
BK-TandF-YAN_9780367509972-210188-Chp02.indd 16 14/05/21 5:32 PM

Conceptualising assessment-as-learning 17
similar concepts to the student-generated questions. Hence, these are examples
of assessment-as-learning because students actually learn from the assessment
task itself. However, they are less likely to be regarded as assessment-for-learning
when feedback is not a part of the process.
Assessment-as-learning and self/peer assessment
Although self/peer assessment are common assessment-as-learning practices and
some researchers (e.g., Dann, 2014) put student self-assessment at the heart of
assessment-as-learning, they are not exclusive to it and assessment-as-learning may
include a wide var iety of act ivities. On one hand, the us e of self/peer assessment per se
does not imply assessment-as-learning: it depends on how they are used. Some
forms of self/peer assessment are not assessment-as-learning because they do not
generate learning opportunities for students who engage in such activities. For
example, some self-assessment forms popular in classrooms require students to give
a grade (e.g., excellent/good/need improvement) to their own performance upon
completing a learning unit. Assessment-as-learning does not occur if (a) no criteria
are used; or (b) students do not attend to appropriate criteria even if they are avail-
able. Students may have limited, if any, learning gains in such cases. This is more
like “grade guessing” (Boud & Falchikov, 1989) that does not involve eliciting and
using criteria or standards and making meaningful evaluative judgments. Students’
guessing grades are particularly vulnerable to bias (e.g., the endowment effect)
(Joughin, Boud, & Dawson, 2019) and/or idiosyncratic heuristics (e.g. relying on
the amount of effort they have put rather than the quality of their performance)
(Yan & Brown, 2017). Furthermore, even if students’ guessing grades are accurate,
although it is less likely to happen, the self-assessment may be what Black, Harrison,
Lee, Marshall, and Wiliam (2003) termed “formative for the teacher, but not for
the students” (p. 122) because teachers may design subsequent instruction based
on the results, but students obtain limited learning opportunities in the process.
On the other hand, any assessment-related tasks, initiated by students or
their teachers, that provide learning opportunities for students can be consid-
ered as assessment-as-learning. For example, in a student project, students may
be required to address a complex and authentic problem. The process might
include different stages including problem formulation, planning, strategy selec-
tion, application, and communication of outcomes. Students can be judged (by
teachers, peers, or themselves) on their performance on each stage of the pro-
ject, which is the assessment, and they are learning from the assessment at the
same time. It should be emphasised, however, that the evaluative judgments in
the assessment-as-learning process might be vulnerable to heuristics and biases
(Joughin et al., 2019; Yan & Brown, 2017) that could be caused by maladaptive
forms of assessment. For instance, introducing summative self/peer assessment
might provide perverse incentives for students to judge inappropriately (Yan,
Brown, Lee, & Qiu, 2020). Hence, the assessment-as-learning integrated in the
project should serve learning purposes and the student should do the project and
be assessed on it as authentically as possible.
BK-TandF-YAN_9780367509972-210188-Chp02.indd 17 14/05/21 5:32 PM

18 Assessment as learning
In this example, assessment takes place, but it is assessment-as-learning because
the student is learning throughout and assessment is subordinated to learning.
There may not formally be any self or peer assessment, but a complex problem
necessarily involves the student in multiple occasions of informal self-assessment:
have I formulated the problem appropriately? Have I assembled all the elements
needed for complete the task? How will I communicate the outcomes in a way
that the client will appreciate? When done with others, there are similar stages of
peer feedback. Care must be taken, however, that inappropriate summative forms
of self and peer assessment do not distort the process (Sridharan & Boud, 2019).
The above example showcases an assessment task designed to be one from which
students necessarily learn, both substantive knowledge and self-regulation.
This kind of assessment-as-learning sometimes is not overt and it might
appear to be more like learning than assessment. Disentangling the relationship
between teaching, learning and assessment is never straight-forward. It might
be useful to conceive of a range of assessment-as-learning practices, in some of
which the assessment element is dominant (as in a nal project) and others in
which learning is the raison d’etre with assessment being of lesser concern (for
example in a mid-course activity). However, it is assessment because it involves
identifying evidence of learning and making judgments about it. Assessment-as-
learning only occurs when students have engaged in some parts of assessment.
From a pedagogical perspective, advocates of assessment-as-learning aim to make
such invisible assessments more explicit to provide useful evidence of learning as
well as provide opportunities for self-regulated learning.
Assessment-as-learning and sustainable assessment
Assessment-for-learning may be fairly short-term in effect (normally within the
timescale of the course unit or sequence of study). Recognition that such form-
ative assessment may not build student’s capacity beyond the immediate objects
of study led to the identication of an additional major purpose of assessment.
That is, “assessment that meets the needs of the present and prepares students
to meet their own future learning needs”, termed sustainable assessment (Boud
2000, p. 151). A focus on sustainable assessment requires that all assessment
activities, of whatever kind, contribute to the building of students’ capacity
to learn and judge their own performance beyond the immediate task. Thus,
assessment-as-learning is compatible with sustainable assessment, but may need
to include some features to be recognised as such.
To consider assessment-as-learning tasks to be sustainable assessment needs
not only to involve tasks from which students learn, but reexive elements within
them that involve students practising the making of judgements about what they
know and can do as well as demonstrating effective performance of the task.
These elements could include features of developing evaluative judgement such as
identifying characteristics of the kind of quality work of which the present task is
an example, applying appropriate criteria to judge task completion, and articulat-
ing what they have learned from the task (Boud, Dawson, Tai, & Ajjawi, 2018).
BK-TandF-YAN_9780367509972-210188-Chp02.indd 18 14/05/21 5:32 PM

Conceptualising assessment-as-learning 19
The purpose of sustainable assessment requires that students not only demon-
strate their learning of the substantive task, but also demonstrate their capacity
to judge themselves with respect to the learning outcomes that the task repre-
sents. In the same way that any assessment-as-learning task prompts learning
from students’ engagement with it, to also be sustainable, such a task must also
prompt the meta-learning of students’ being able to judge performance. Thus,
sustainable assessment is exhibited through a sequence of assessment-as-learning
tasks in which students self-monitor as well as receive feedback information on
their judgements and their task performance. By doing this, assessment-as-learn-
ing tasks progressively build students’ evaluative judgement over time.
Assessment-as-learning and self-regulated learning
Assessment-as-learning is not the same as self-regulated learning as it focuses
on distinct acts of assessment in which learning is deliberately involved, whereas
self-regulated learning is a process which permeates the entire curriculum
whether an explicit act of assessment occurs or not. However, almost all con-
ceptualisations of assessment-as-learning (e.g., Berry, 2008; Clark, 2012; Dann,
2002; Earl, 2006), including ours, emphasise students’ active and reexive
role in the process of assessment-as-learning and the importance of develop-
ing students’ metacognition and self-regulation. Students are expected to take
increasing responsibility in setting learning goals, identifying success criteria,
monitoring learning process, and evaluating learning outcomes. To this extent,
assessment-as-learning contributes to students’ engagement in assessment as a
self-regulated learning process (Brown, Chapter 4; Dann, 2014). It is also pos-
sible that assessment-as-learning, via the mediating role of evaluative judgment,
can lead to co-regulation of learning if students interact with resource persons
(e.g., teacher or more able peers) in the assessment process (Panadero, Broadbent,
Boud, & Lodge, 2019).
Take self-assessment as an example. Although some self-regulated learning
models (e.g., Zimmerman & Moylan, 2009) position self-assessment/evalua-
tion as the last phase (i.e., when the learning task is completed), others (e.g.,
Winne & Hadwin, 1998) conceptualise self-assessment, or self-monitoring,
as a continuous function that occurs throughout the whole process of self-
regulated learning with the target of the monitoring varied at different stages
of the process. Yan (2020) examined the relationship between self-assessment
and self-regulated learning within Zimmerman and Moylan’s (2009) model. His
ndings echoed previous studies (e.g., Harris & Brown, 2018) that self-assess-
ment occurred at each self-regulated learning phase with different patterns. At
the preparatory phase, self-assessment of personal and environmental resources
serves to setting a reasonable learning goal and proposing appropriate learning
strategies. At the performance phase, self-assessment of the dynamic learning
process facilitates self-correction, and ensures the learning is towards the right
direction. At the appraisal phase, self-assessment of the learning outcomes can
enable students to identify their own strengths and weaknesses as well as the
BK-TandF-YAN_9780367509972-210188-Chp02.indd 19 14/05/21 5:32 PM

20 Assessment as learning
directions for future improvement. In this sense, assessment-as-learning can
contribute to building a fundamental skill underlying self-regulated learning,
rather than only one part of it.
Does assessment-as-learning encourage instrumentalism?
Torrance (2007), in his research on assessment in post-secondary education and
training in England, contended that “the practice of assessment has moved from
assessment-of-learning, through assessment-for-learning, to assessment-as-learn-
ing, with assessment procedures and practices coming completely to dominate
the learning experience and ‘criteria compliance’ replacing ‘learning’ (p. 281)”.
His argument was echoed later in New Zealand (Hume & Coll, 2009) and
the Scandinavian context (Ferm Almqvist, Vinge, Väkevä, & Zandén, 2017).
Torrance’s critique on assessment-as-learning at that time was based on the
observation that transparency in assessment processes and criteria, as well as
the use of coaching, practice and provision of formative feedback can encour-
age instrumentalism of learners, tutors, and institutions. He suggested that
this instrumentalism emphasised criteria compliance and award achievement at
the cost of reducing the quality and validity of outcomes achieved, and that it
weakened the development of learner autonomy and competency of “learning
to learn”. With regard to the reasons for the “convergent” fashion of form-
ative assessment (i.e., focusing on student achievements on curriculum-based
objectives), rather than “divergent” form (i.e., emphasising on deication of
students’ learning strengths and weaknesses) (Torrance & Pryor, 1998), the
author attributed partly to the advocacy of criterion-referenced assessment in the
post-secondary education sector, and partly to the attainment-oriented culture.
It implies that such an instrumentalism might be more serious in examination
dominant cultures, such as East Asian countries. The impact of this instrumen-
talism might be positive in increasing examination scores, but is questionable in
other aspects. For example, Hong Kong students are successful on international
tests (e.g., PIRLS, PISA, TIMSS; Mullis, Martin, Foy, & Hooper, 2016, Mullis,
Martin, Foy, & Hooper, 2017; OECD, 2019), but, to some scholars, the Hong
Kong education system has failed to equip students with appropriate skills for
the knowledge economy (Forestier & Crossley, 2014) and for developing long-
term learning capacity (Tan, 2015).
Apart from the negative impact on learner autonomy, another practical, but
also signicant, by-product is the enhanced teaching workload caused by the
intensive use of coaching, practice and provision of formative feedback. The
more guidelines and feedback students expected, the more pressure and “hidden
work” associated with assessment might fall as much on the shoulders of tutors
as on the learners (cf. also James & Diment, 2003).
Torrance’s critique relates to the specic context in which he was operating so
some caution when interpreting his views is warranted. Was he critiquing intrin-
sic features of assessment-as-learning as such, or just a particular manifestation
of it in one sector, in one country at one time?
BK-TandF-YAN_9780367509972-210188-Chp02.indd 20 14/05/21 5:32 PM

Conceptualising assessment-as-learning 21
Firstly, the instrumental form of assessment-as-learning criticised by Torrance
is “compliance-driven” assessment-as-learning. That is, assessment tasks force
or induce students to learn by the important consequences associated with such
assessments (e.g., certicate, award). The learning behaviours students engage in
under such circumstances may be less likely to be intrinsically motivated self-reg-
ulated learning, but mere preparation for pre-specied accountability objectives.
This is also salient in Brown’s (Chapter 4) discussion of students’ conception of
assessment. Similar, teachers might narrow their teaching scope and simply align
teaching activities with those specic objectives (Swafeld, 2011). In contrast,
assessment-as-learning with an instructional emphasis is what we are discuss-
ing throughout this book. It triggers students’ learning due to the design of
assessment tasks and the process of assessment activities. It encourages and pro-
vides opportunities to students for self-regulated learning. It does not assume
pre-specied criteria or compliance to them, nor does it assume that all learning
outcomes need be specied in advance.
Secondly, transparency in assessment processes has been a long-term trend
in all sectors of education internationally no matter what form of assessment is
used. The use of explicit criteria as part of this transparency is a feature of both
assessment-as-learning and assessment-for-learning. It is a means of communi-
cating expectations to students and is a contribution to fairness in assessment.
However, the intensive use of coaching, practice and provision of formative
feedback is more part of assessment-for-learning, than assessment-as-learning. It
is important here to distinguish between whatever externally mandated educa-
tional accountability measures may be imposed, which may involve the devices
Torrance is concerned about, and the ways in which educational standards get
translated into pedagogical practice when particular forms of assessment are not
externally imposed.
Thirdly, as elaborated earlier, although assessment-as-learning can sup-
port achieving short-term learning goals, its strength lies in the development
of longer-term learning competency. However, this spirit might not be fully
enacted in the ways in which assessment-as-learning as well as other formative
assessment practices are implemented. For example, Marshall and Drummond
(2006), in a ‘Learning How to Learn’ study, reported that some teachers tended
to use formative assessment techniques to support accomplishment of short-term
teaching and learning goals, rather than to develop learning autonomy among
students. There is nothing wrong per se in providing detailed assessment speci-
cations and formative feedback, but this should aim at promoting longer-term
learning capacity and building evaluative judgment, not merely criteria compli-
ance reinforced by instrumentalism.
Fourthly, as Torrance (2007) argued, one of the downsides of the instrumen-
tal use of assessment-as-learning is increased workload for tutors. In contrast to
this, the principles of assessment-as-learning articulated here imply that it need
not be so burdensome since, in assessment-as-learning, the teacher is no longer
the sole source of feedback and every individual student becomes a learning
resource for themselves, and for one another.
BK-TandF-YAN_9780367509972-210188-Chp02.indd 21 14/05/21 5:32 PM

22 Assessment as learning
Conclusion
In this chapter, we set out to explore an updated conceptualisation of assess-
ment-as-learning. A new denition was proposed and its implications were
elaborated. The dening feature of assessment-as-learning was attached to the
requirement of generating learning opportunities for students through their
active engagement in seeking, interrelating, and using evidence. The contrast
between assessment-as-learning and other relevant assessment concepts revealed
the shared tenet, i.e., using assessment to support learning, as well as the dif-
ferences in the ways they support learning. This conceptual work is likely to
advance the research in this eld by working towards a common understand-
ing of what assessment-as-learning is. It also has the potential to contribute to
informing the educational assessment reforms around the world emphasising
self-regulated and life-long learning.
References
Alverno College. (1994). Student assessment-as-learning at Alverno College (3rd ed.).
Milwaukee, WI: Alverno College. (Original work published 1979, revised 1985 and
1994.)
Berry, R. (2008). Assessment-for-learning. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
Black, P., Harrison, C., Lee, C., Marshall, B., & Wiliam, D. (2003). Assessment for learn-
ing: Putting it into practice. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
Boud, D. (2000). Sustainable assessment: Rethinking assessment for the learning society.
Studies in Continuing Education, 22(2), 151–167.
Boud, D., Dawson, P., Tai, J., & Ajjawi, R. (2018). Creating an agenda for developing
students’ evaluative judgement. In D. Boud, R. Ajjawi, P. Dawson, & J. Tai (Eds.),
Developing Evaluative Judgement in Higher Education: Assessment for Knowing and
Producing Quality Work (pp. 186–195). London: Routledge.
Boud, D., & Falchikov, N. (1989). Quantitative studies of student self-assessment in higher-
education: A critical analysis of ndings. Higher Education, 18(5), 529–549.
Boud, D., & Soler, R. (2016). Sustainable assessment revisited. Assessment and Evaluation
in Higher Education, 41(3), 400–413.
Clark, I. (2012). Formative assessment: Assessment is for self-regulated learning.
Educational Psychology Review, 24(2), 205–249.
Dann, R. (2002). Promoting assessment-as-learning: Improving the learning process. New
Your, NY: Routledge.
Dann, R. (2014). Assessment as learning: Blurring the boundaries of assessment and learn-
ing for theory, policy and practice. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice,
21(2), 149–166.
Earl, L. M. (2003). Assessment-as-learning: Using classroom assessment to maximize student
learning. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
Earl, L. M. (2006). Rethinking classroom assessment with purpose in mind: Assessment-
for-learning, assessment-as-learning, assessment-of-learning. Canada: Government of
Manitoba.
Earl, L. M. (2013). Assessment-as-learning: Using classroom assessment to maximize student
learning (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
BK-TandF-YAN_9780367509972-210188-Chp02.indd 22 14/05/21 5:32 PM

Conceptualising assessment-as-learning 23
Ferm Almqvist, C., Vinge, J., Väkevä, L., & Zandén, O. (2017). Assessment as learn-
ing in music education: The risk of “criteria compliance” replacing “learning” in the
Scandinavian countries. Research Studies in Music Education, 39(1), 3–18.
Forestier, K., & Crossley, M. (2014). International education policy transfer – borrow-
ing both ways: The Hong Kong and England experience. Compare: A Journal of
Comparative and International Education, 45(5), 664–685.
Hancock, D., Hare, N., Denny, P., & Denyer, G. (2018). Improving large class perfor-
mance and engagement through student-generated question banks. Biochemistry and
Molecular Biology Education, 46(4), 306–317.
Harris, L. R., & Brown, G. T. L. (2018). Using self-assessment to improve student learning.
New York: Routledge.
Hong Kong Curriculum Development Council. (2017). Secondary education curriculum
guide. Hong Kong: Author.
Hume, A., & Coll, R. K. (2009). Assessment of learning, for learning, and as learning:
New Zealand case studies. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 16(3),
269–290.
James, D., & Diment, K. (2003). Going underground? Learning and assessment in an
ambiguous space. Journal of Vocational Education and Training, 55(4), 407–422.
Joughin, G., Boud, D., & Dawson, P. (2019). Threats to student evaluative judge-
ment and their management. Higher Education Research and Development, 38(3),
537–549.
Marshall, B., & Drummond, M. J. (2006). How teachers engage with Assessment
for Learning: Lessons from the classroom. Research Papers in Education, 21(2),
133–149.
Mentkowski, M. (2006). Accessible and adaptable elements of alverno student assess-
ment-as-learning: Strategies and challenges for peer review. In C. Bryan, & K. Clegg
(Eds.), Innovative Assessment in Higher Education (pp. 48–63). London: Taylor and
Francis.
Mullis, I. V. S., Martin, M. O., Foy, P., & Hooper, M. (2016). TIMSS 2015 International
Results in Mathematics. Retrieved on 20 May 2020, from Boston College, TIMSS &
PIRLS International Study Center website: http://timssandpirls.bc.edu/timss2015/
international-results/
Mullis, I. V. S., Martin, M. O., Foy, P., & Hooper, M. (2017). PIRLS 2016 International
Results in Reading. Retrieved on 20 May 2020, from Boston College, TIMSS &
PIRLS International Study Center website: http://timssandpirls.bc.edu/pirls2016/
international-results/
New South Wales Education Standards Authority. (n.d.). Assessment for, as and of learn-
ing. Retrieved on 23 June 2020, from https://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/
portal/nesa/k-10/understanding-the-curriculum/assessment/approaches
Nicol, D. (2020). The power of internal feedback: Exploiting natural comparison pro-
cesses. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, online rst. doi:10.1080/02602
938.2020.1823314
OECD. (2019). PISA 2018 results (Volume I): What students know and can do. Retrieved
on 25 May 2020, from OECD PISA website https://www.oecd.org/pisa/publica-
tions/pisa-2018-results-volume-i-5f07c754-en.htm
Panadero, E., Broadbent, J., Boud, D., & Lodge, J. (2019). Using assessment to inuence
self- and co-regulated learning: The role of developing evaluative judgement. European
Journal of Psychology of Education, 34, 535–557.
BK-TandF-YAN_9780367509972-210188-Chp02.indd 23 14/05/21 5:32 PM

24 Assessment as learning
Scriven, M. (1967). The methodology of evaluation. In R. E. Stake (Ed.), Curriculum
evaluation. American Educational Research Association Monograph series on evalua-
tion, no. 1. Chicago: Rand McNally.
Sridharan, B., & Boud, D. (2019). The effects of peer judgements on teamwork and
self-assessment ability in collaborative group work. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher
Education, 44(6), 894–909.
Swafeld, S. (2011). Getting to the heart of authentic assessment-for-learning. Assessment
in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 18(4), 433–449.
Tai, J., Ajjawi, R., Boud, D., Dawson, P., & Panadero, E. (2018). Developing evalua-
tive judgement: Enabling students to make decisions about the quality of work. Higher
Education, 76, 467–481.
Tan, C. (2015). Beyond rote-memorisation: Confucius’ concept of thinking. Educational
Philosophy and Theory, 47(5), 428–439.
Torrance, H. (2007). Assessment-as-learning? How the use of explicit learning objectives,
assessment criteria and feedback in post-secondary education and training can come
to dominate learning. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 14(3),
281–294.
Torrance, H., & Pryor, J. (1998). Investigating formative assessment: Teaching, learning
and assessment in the classroom. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Villarroel, V., Bloxham, S., Bruna, C., & Herrera-Seda, C. (2018). Authentic assessment:
Creating a blueprint for course design. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education,
43(5), 840–854.
Winne, P. H., & Hadwin, A. F. (1998). Studying as self-regulated engagement in learning.
In D. J. Hacker, J. Dunlosky, & A. C. Graesser (Eds.), Metacognition in Educational
Theory and Practice (pp. 277–304). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Yan, Z. (2020). Self-assessment in the process of self-regulated learning and its relation-
ship with academic achievement. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 45(2),
224–238. doi: 10.1080/02602938.2019.1629390.
Yan, Z., & Brown, G. T. L. (2017). A cyclical self-assessment process: Towards a model of
how students engage in self-assessment. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education,
42(8), 1247–1262. doi: 10.1080/02602938.2016.1260091.
Yan, Z., Brown, G. T. L., Lee, C. K. J., & Qiu, X. L. (2020). Student self-assessment:
Why do they do it? Educational Psychology, 40(4), 509–532. doi: 10.1080/01443410.
2019.1672038.
Yeong, F. M., Chin, C. F., & Tan, A. L. (2020). Use of a competency framework to
explore the benets of student-generated multiple-choice questions (MCQs) on student
engagement. Pedagogies: An International Journal, 15(2), 83–105.
Zimmerman, B. J., & Moylan, A. R. (2009). Self-regulation: Where metacognition and
motivation intersect. In D. J. Hacker, J. Dunlosky, & A. C. Graesser (Eds.), Handbook
of metacognition in education (pp. 299–315). New York, NY: Routledge.
BK-TandF-YAN_9780367509972-210188-Chp02.indd 24 14/05/21 5:32 PM