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the tacit dimensions of
standards and Criteria
strengths and limitations have not yet been fully
explored.
Assessment and examination
as Central elements in online
and distance education
In this article it is assumed that all criteria and
standards have a tacit dimension; they are imbued
with an implicit meaning that is not always visible
to the students (e.g. O'Donovan et al. 2004). This
specific meaning could be described as a result
of the traditions, methods, and theories used and
negotiated within the 'communities of practice'
of the overall academic context. This includes the
idea that the students should develop abilities of
a generic nature, for example ethical and social
responsibility, communication and information
literacy, problem-solving, critical thinking, reflec-
tion and self-direction in learning (Sainsbury &
Walker, 2007).
However, there are also specific traditions
within the particular institutions where the stu-
dents conduct their studies which are implicitly
embedded in the text of the steering documents.
Access to the implicit meanings in these docu-
ments is gained within these communities' through
negotiations, interactions between the members
of the staff and through the practical use of as-
sessments. Full understanding of the community's
shared meaning of how a student product should
be constructed in order to correspond to what
these communities regard as “the correct way” is
hard to put into explicit words without reducing it
to simple statements. Because of the complexity
of verbalising the shared meaning it is easier to
gain an understanding of it through interaction
and practical experience.
When the students enter their studies they may
not be familiar with the ideas within the academy
and accordingly the meaning inscribed in standards
and criteria may not be clear to them. This could
trigger some students to become what Miller and
Parlett (1974) referred to as 'cue-seekers'; students
who orientate towards cues that provide informa-
tion about what is rewarded in the assessment
system and thereby result in successful strategies
to pass their exams. Other students (with Miller
The scenario described above may be one of the
explanations for the results of previous Swedish
studies by Hult (2005, 2007), in which assessments
in 50 net-based courses, varying in discipline,
length and level, were collected and analysed. One
of the most striking results in these studies was
that students on these courses had to go through
a great number of different assessments spread
out over time during the course. Interviews with
teachers confirmed that the courses to a great
extent are built around the assessments, in effect
they serve the purpose of building the content of
the course.
The continuous assessments also frame the
students' course work in a way which forces them
to stay active throughout the whole course, thus
providing support to enable them to complete the
course.Assessments in this perspective seem very
central to building both the form and the content
of net-based courses. This trend is also visible
outside the Swedish context. Gibbs and Simpson
(2005) report that an Open University student in
United Kingdom may receive up to fifty times as
much feedback on assignments over the course
of an entire degree programme as students at
conventional universities!
Becker et al (1968), Snyder (1971) and Miller
& Parlett (1974) have all in different ways shown
how examination and examination tasks in higher
education tends to have a steering effect on student
learning. This means that assessment and exami-
nation tasks must be designed to correlate with
the idea of independence and critical thinking in
learners if we want to enhance the students' pos-
sibilities to develop these types of skills.
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