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The Dark Arts of Assessment: from SMART to social justice

Dr Jan McArthurLancaster University


@JanMcArthur


Theodor Adorno, Minima Moralia, 2005


Poacher turned Gamekeeper


The Dark Side


Darkness and Higher Education

Not a place of evil in comparison with the good of light, but a place of complexity and nuance

‘Other side of the coin’ to the light side: it is ‘the darker sides of higher education in everyday practice, which are less easy to catch in the spotlight and define in functional and explicit terminology’ (115)

The dark side is not negative or bad, rather formed by that ‘which may be dim, obscure or caught in a blind angle’ (115)

Bengsten and Barnett, 2017


Dark Arts


From SMART to Social Justice

Technocratic danger

Failure to consider the nature of knowledge


Purposes of Higher Education

Dynamic, contested and not easily known

Students must be able to understand how new knowledge comes into being, and how it has done so in the past

Some of the standard advice on assessment assumes knowledge engagement is unproblematic

How we conceive of knowledge is a social justice issue


DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO SOCIAL JUSTICE

IMPLICATIONS FOR ASSESSMENT


What do we mean by social justice?

Surprisingly un/under

examined in HE literature

Assessment literature often

taken to mean fairness

– but its meaning can also

go unexamined

Dominant understanding of social justice as fair process


John Rawls

Social-contract - described as procedural

Fairness is foundation for decisions

3 key aspects: free, equal and independent

On this basis, form contract about socially just

Pursuit of own interests in mutuality with others

‘Veil of ignorance’ – mirror moral impartiality that can be achieved


Key to a Rawlsian approach to social justice

Putting in place the procedures to ensure fair distribution of rights and outcomes within society


Social justice as procedure the same appeal as SMART

Clear steps and processes, albeit more abstracted in Rawls’ work

Follow a process – this will lead to

the right outcome

Predetermined learning

outcomes,

Bloom’s taxonomy,

Constructive alignment,

Marking rubrics,

Moderation systems,

Quality Assurance


Procedure is important, but it cannot tell us everything about the journey or experience

Procedural vs Outcomes-based approach to Social Justice

Capabilities approach – Sen and Nussbaum

Critical Theory

Focus on lived realities

Place far less faith in people being rational, independent and free


Nussbaum, 2006


CRITICAL THEORY & SOCIAL JUSTICE AS MUTUAL RECOGNITION


Critique and transformation

Hidden power, influences and social pathologies

In contrast to Rawls’ open, rational and mutual agreement

“critical theory maintains: it need not be so…and the necessary conditions for such change already

exist”

Horkheimer, 1937

Critical theory


Social Justice as Mutual Recognition

Axel Honneth

We know what is just by:

‘that which allows the individual member of our society to realize his or her own life’s objectives, in cooperation with others, and with the greatest possible autonomy’ (Honneth, 2010, p. 13)

Interplay individual and the social

Misrecognition - injustice


3 Realms of Recognition

Love/care Recognition

Respect/Rights Recognition

Esteem/MeritRecognition


ASSESSMENT FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE


Assessment for Social Justice requires practices of

TRUST

HONESTY

RESPONSIBILITY

FORGIVENESS

RESPONSIVENESS

}

}

CARE

RESPECT

ESTEEM


TRUST


TRUST

‘if I do not recognize my partner in interaction as a certain type of person, his reactions cannot give me the sense that I am recognized as the same type of person’ (Honneth, 1996, p 38)


Trust

When students offer work for assessment it is an act of trust on many levels

To demonstrate trust need not involve naiveté

Consistent across three realms of recognition: care, respect, esteem

Cheating is an act of self-misrecognition

Trust relates to the extent to which students value their own work


Independent studentCritical thinkingReflexivitySelf-directed learner21st century graduate


Industrialised distrust

Growth of the plagiarism detection industry

Distrust on an

industrialised scale


Turnitin

140 countries

15,000 institutional customers

More than 26 million students work passed through (Turnitin, 2015b)

“As education moves to greater use of technology, Turnitin is becoming a core component of the writing instruction process around the world” (Turnitin 2015a) – Jason Chu, education director


Social justice implications

Students say it positions them as cheats

Clever marketing to be both

detection and prevention

No payment to students

for their work

– used for commercial gain

Mirage of supporting

academic writing

– better done in other ways


Student asked if Turnitin encouraged redrafting:

I think it did but not always for the better I think because I would change something that I was quite happy with because Turnitinsaid it wasn’t happy with it

(Penketh and Beaumont, 2014, p 100)

Instrumentalisation\industrialisationof a pedagogic relationship

Covers up a larger problem


RESPONSIVENESS


Responsiveness

Involves a dialogue between positions and an openness to have one’s thoughts and actions shaped by encounters with the world in which one exists

Looking outwards

Levels of interconnectivity

Mess and the social world

Can we, should we, predetermine what students learn?

Alternate path between tightly prescribedand entirely aimless


Open & Closed Aims

Hardarson (2016)


Learning to use Newton’s inverse square law to calculate the gravitational force between two masses may be understood as a closed aim … but understanding gravity is better seen as an open aim that cannot be conclusively reached.

When has a student understood gravity? When she has learned to do simple calculations based on Newton’s formula? Is able to explain how massive objects affect space-time? Has mastered the concepts used to describe black holes? Knows what the long search for the Higgs boson was all about? Can participate in debates about the differences between gravity and the other fundamental forces of nature? Understanding gravity is an endeavour which, arguably, cannot be completed (Hardarson, 2016,7).


RESPONSIVENESS

In order to appreciate the social usefulness of their knowledge students must be able to see it in its social context


Pauline

Richardson, 2004

Studying EconomicsOpportunity Cost – real world example


The most important outcome of assessment should be the engagement with socially-useful knowledge

And the mutual recognition of this


Assessment is a glorious celebration of student achievement


It need not be so


Adorno, T. W. (2005). Minima Moralia. London: Verso.Bengsten, S., & Barnett, R. (2017). Confronting the Dark Side of Higher Education. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 51(1), 114-131. Ecclestone, K. (1999). Empowring or Ensnaring?: The Implications of Outcome-based Assessment in Higher Education. Higher Education Quarterly, 53(1), 29-48. Hardarson, A. (2016). Aims of Education: How to Resist the Temptation of Technocratic Models. Journal of Philosophy of Education, [early view]. Honneth, A. (1996). Struggle for Recognition. Cambridge: Polity Press.Honneth, A. (2010). The Political Identity of the Green Movement in Germany: Social-Philosophical Reflections. Critical Horizons, 11(1), 5-18. Horkheimer, M. (1995). Critical Theory: Selected Essays. New York: Continuum.


Nussbaum, M. C. (2006). Frontiers of Justice. Cambridge MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Penketh, C., & Beaumont, C. (2014). ' Turnitin said it wasn't happy';: can the regulatory discourse of plagiarism detection operate as a change artefact for writing development? Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 51(1), 95. Proust, M. (2006). Remembrance of Things Past, volume 2. Ware: Wordsworth Editions, I first found this quote through Rowland, S. (2006) The Enquiring University, Maidenhead, Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press.Rawls, J. (1971). A Theory of Justice. Cambridge MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Richardson, P. W. (2004). Reading and writing from textbooks in higher education: A case study from economics. Studies in Higher Education, 29(4), 505-521.


The Guardian. (2016, 20 May 2016). Dear Student, I just don't have time to mark your essay properly. https://http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2016/may/20/dear-student-i-just-dont-have-time-to-mark-your-essay-properly. Turnitin®. (2015a). Global Study by Turnitin Shows 30 Percent Drop in Unoriginal Writing in Higher Education; Digital Feedback Tools Grow by Triple Digits. Retrieved fromhttp://turnitin.com/en_us/about-us/media-center/press/item/global-study-by-turnitin-shows-30-percent-drop-in-unoriginal-writing-in-higher-educationTurnitin®. (2015b). Turnitin Makes Two Executive Appointments to Support Product Expansion and Global Growth. Retrieved from http://turnitin.com/en_us/about-us/media-center/press/item/turnitin-makes-two-executive-appointments-to-support-product-expansion-and-global-growth

http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2016/may/20/dear-student-i-just-dont-have-time-to-mark-your-essay-properly

http://turnitin.com/en_us/about-us/media-center/press/item/global-study-by-turnitin-shows-30-percent-drop-in-unoriginal-writing-in-higher-education

http://turnitin.com/en_us/about-us/media-center/press/item/turnitin-makes-two-executive-appointments-to-support-product-expansion-and-global-growth

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