Biggs Model Of Constructive Alignment

Of course, simply by having an exam question with the word ‘evaluate’ in the title, for example, does not necessarily mean that the students’ skills of evaluation are actually being assessed. They may be, but if the answer can be answered successfully simply by regurgitating the notes taken from the lecture you gave on the topic then all that may actually be being assessed are the students’ memorizing and essay-writing skills, along possibly with the skill of question spotting.

Assessment systems in teaching and learning dominate what students are oriented towards in their learning. Even where lecturers say that they want students to be creative and thoughtful, students often recognize that what is really necessary, or at least what is sufficient,

The most important is to design appropriate learning opportunities for the students to get them to a point where they can successfully undertake the assessment tasks. Although the term ‘constructive alignment’ is not used, this kind of systematic thinking is exactly what the QAA are looking for when they refer to effective and appropriate measurement of the achievement by students of the intended learning outcomes. (QAA), General principle 6).Departments mindful of the QAA requirements, and seeking to follow Biggs’ principles, would therefore be well advised to do two things, first to require all course modules or units to follow this design model, and to ensure that all assessment tasks, and assessment criteria, clearly and directly relate to the learning outcomes and second thing is to audit all their modules’ or units’ learning outcomes and map them against the subject’s program specifications, to ensure that all the program specifications will have been assessed for any student successfully completing the course

Essentially, this research says that students are capable of taking different approaches to their learning but the surface approach, defined as the student reduces what is to be learnt to the status of unconnected facts to be memorized means that the learning task becomes to reproduce the subject matter at a later date. Alternatively, a deep approach to their learning, defined as the student attempts to make sense of what is to be learnt, which consists of ideas and concepts and involves the student in thinking, seeking integration between components and between tasks, and ‘playing’ with ideas (Gibbs, 1992: 2). A key theme in this study , regarding the importance of assessment practice, is that most students can adopt either surface or deep approaches to their learning and one of the most important influences on which approach they take is the design of the course and the assessment strategies used but course characteristics associated with a surface approach are consist of a lack of opportunity to pursue subjects in depth and a lack of choice over subjects and a lack of choice over the method of study and also a threatening and anxiety provoking