Transforming the Experience of Students through Assessment

About TESTA

TESTA is a joint National Teaching Fellowship Project with four partner universities of similar character: Bath Spa, Chichester, Winchester and Worcester. It is funded by the Higher Education Academy for three years (2009-2012). TESTA aims to improve the quality of student learning through addressing programme-level assessment. TESTA is a £200,000 National Teaching Fellowship project on programme assessment, funded by the Higher Education Academy, led by the University of Winchester (2009-2012). TESTA originally conducted research on eight programmes in four partner universities to map assessment environments, develop interventions and evaluate them. The TESTA approach has been used with more than 100 programmes in over 40 UK universities, and in Australia, India and the USA. TESTA works with academics, students and managers - and for students, academics and managers – to identify study behaviour, generate assessment patterns to foster deeper learning across whole programmes, and debunk regulatory myths which prevent assessment for learning. 

TESTA - Transforming the Experience of Students through Assessment

Publications

Jessop, T. and Maleckar, B. (2014) The influence of disciplinary assessment patterns on student learning: a comparative study. Studies in Higher Education. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03075079.2014.943170 (Open Access).

Jessop, T., El Hakim, Y. and Gibbs, G. (2014) TESTA in 2014: A way of thinking about assessment and feedback. Educational Developments. 15(2). 21-23. June 2014. Published by SEDA.

Jessop, T., El Hakim, Y. and Gibbs, G. (2014) The whole is greater than the sum of its parts: a large-scale study of students' learning in response to different programme assessment patterns. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education. 39(1).73-88. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2013.792108
 
 
Jessop, T., McNab, N. And Gubby, L. (2012) Mind the gap: An analysis of how quality assurance procedures influence programme assessment patterns. Active Learning in Higher Education. 13(3). 143-154.
 
Jessop, T., El Hakim, Y. and Gibbs, G. (2011) TESTA: Research Inspiring Change. Educational Developments 12(4). 12-16. Published by SEDA. http://www.seda.ac.uk/?p=5_4_1&;pID=12.4

Jessop, T., Lawrence, P. and Clarke, H. (2011) TESTA: Case Study of a Change Process. BA Primary, University of Winchester. Available at: http://escalate.ac.uk/studentfeedback

Gibbs, G. & Dunbar-Goddet, H. (2009) Characterising programme-level assessment environments that support learning. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. 34(4): 481-489.

Gibbs, G. and Dunbar-Goddet, H. (2007) The effects of programme assessment environments on student learning. Oxford Learning Institute, University of Oxford. Report commissioned by the Higher Education Academy.  Available at:
 
Gibbs, G. and Simpson, C. (2004) Conditions Under Which Assessment Supports Students' Learning. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (LATHE). 3-31. Available at: http://www2.glos.ac.uk/offload/tli/lets/lathe/issue1/issue1.pdf
 


 
Juliet Williams
27 September 2015
TESTA in Periodic Review?
​With the start of the new academic year come the inevitable beginnings of the periodic review process, with the validation and re-validation of programmes at the University of Winchester approaching rather more swiftly than we ever anticipate at thi...
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Tansy Jessop
07 September 2015
Ten ways to get it back in ten days
Graham Gibbs' throw-away line "If feedback is not back in ten days, it's not worth doing" is controversial and irritating to academics - if - and here's the big if - they carry on doing assessment and feedback in the same way. If it's a case of turni...
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Tansy Jessop
07 September 2015
Getting more for less?
You gets what you pays for...The Higher Education Academy has launched a seminar series with a strand on "getting more for less" in its upcoming Assessment and Feedback series. "Getting more for less" is quite a catchy title in a Higher Education sys...
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