The impact of assessment on students learning

3. Characterizing an assessment environment and assessment experience questionnaire 
 
3.1 Methodology 
A methodology is developed, based on Graham Gibbs methods [4], for characterizing assessment environments in 
terms of: 
Ɣ
The percentage of marks from examinations. 
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times students experienced summative-only assessment. 
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times students experienced formative-only assessment. 
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assessment methods used. 
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The amount of oral and written feedback that students experienced. 
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timelines of feedback from the time of submission. 
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ation of course objectives and outcomes. 
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of arrangement between outcomes and assessment methods. 
Each program could then be rated high, medium or low against these characteristics to enable us to establish 
patterns in assessment characteristics. This could be done by examining course documentation and by interviewing 
program chairs and students. 
3.2 Assessment experience questionnaire (AEQ)
An AEQ that could 
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Engineering programs was developed. The AEQ used in this paper contained the following scales, which were 
extracted from the course delivery questionnaire and the course content questionnaire: 
Ɣ
Coverage of syllabus. 
Ɣ
Clear objectives and outcomes. 
Ɣ
Assessment effectiveness. 
Ɣ
Quantity and quality of feedback. 
Ɣ
Use of feedback. 
Ɣ
Use of learning approaches
(
Deep approach and surface approach). 
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L
earning from quizzes, assignments, and examination. 
The 
AEQ
, which is extracted from [4], was administered to a group of students across the three programs 
(Communication, Computer, and Electronic Engineering) and student experience was measured on each of the 
above scales for each programme. Interviews were conducted with several students from each program so as to 
illustrate the range of learning responses. Scale measures on the 
AEQ
were related to features of the assessment 
environments to identify patterns of relationships between the environment and the 
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The study 
found that the features of assessment environments and scales from 
AEQ
have significantly lower scores in 
association with them. These features are: a high variety of assessment methods, a high degree of explicitness of 
aims and standards, and a high degree of alignment of aims and standards. On the other hand, the features that have 
significantly higher scores are: a high percentage of marks from exams, a low volume of summative assessment, a 
high volume of formative assessment, a high volume of oral and written feedback, and a high degree of timeliness of 
feedback. In Table-2 below the symbols 
sa, a, ?, d
, and 
sd
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strongly disagree, respectively. 

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721
Shihab Jimaa / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 28 (2011) 718 – 721
Table-2 The AEQ