Constructive Alignment

I was recently asked to write a paper on assessment and PBL. In essence, the history is one of a very long quest about constructive alignment. I came to a PBL environment in the beginning of the eighties and was chartered with an assessment task.

Self-directed learning was considered to be very important in our PBL program. The learners themselves formulate the learning objectives. So far, so good. However, at the end of the unit learners had to pass a set of multiple-choice questions. This constructive misalignment ensures that teachers control over learning, sneaks in through the back door of assessment. This has challenged me my whole life. It is since recent years that I think that learning should drive assessment. The question is how to promote desirable learning through the use of assessment. In a must-read paper by Chris Watling and Shiphra Ginsburg, they argue that it is not easy to be able to do that. They talk about the “alchemy” of assessment and learning. The word alchemy is carefully chosen. It hits the nail on the head. We still poorly understand the relationship between formative and summative elements in assessment and how they drive learning. Despite the vast literature on feedback, we still poorly understand how feedback can be used to inform better learning.

The same holds for self-directed learning: how can that best be “rewarded” in an assessment approach? The alchemy consists of assessment of and for learning strategies, learner perceptions about these, the relationships between learner and assessor, the culture in which the assessment takes place and the organization around assessment. Each of these elements may create tensions and may hamper or foster learning. In the words of the authors: “The challenge is how to align these strategies so that they may complement one another, rather than pulling in opposite directions” (p. 6). Getting the alchemy right is our challenge for the future. Years of research and development lie ahead of us! Fun!

Cees van der Vleuten

Watling, C. J., & Ginsburg, S. (2019). Assessment, feedback and the alchemy of learning. Medical Education, 53, 76-85.