Critically responding to current professional practice through the adoption of inclusive methods of assessment
Judith Waterfield, Staff-Student Partnership for Assessment Change
and Evaluation (SPACE) Project, University of Plymouth
Co-author(s): Melanie Parker, SPACE Project, University of Plymouth
Abstract
This paper will consider how the SPACE (Staff-Student Partnership for Assessment Change and Evaluation) Project at the University of Plymouth, is addressing professional attitude to assessment in Higher Education, by seeking to improve the usual practice of the reactive ad-hoc provision of special examination arrangements and move towards a more inclusive model, which will assess the ability and not the disability of a student.
A participatory Action Research Methodology has been adopted by the Project, to pursue the research issue of developing and promoting alternative forms of assessment, in order to facilitate inclusive education. The Project's original research strategy only included disabled students; however, the collaborative methods employed by the Project have determined a shift in its research focus, to equally include non-disabled students and move away from the medical model interpretation of disability.
This paper will consider the drivers for assessment change including developments in legislation, the widening participation agenda and the lack of research into the equity of special examination arrangements. The argument is made that to really assimilate the social model of disability a shift away from the medical model of providing special examination arrangements has to occur. This paper will use post modernist theory to analyse the implications of such a shift.