Separated by a common language of assessment? Undertaking a linguistic analysis of assessment documentation

West, Harry; Rudge, Luke

Abstract

Assessment and feedback are a key part of the student experience in higher education. Despite advances in practice in recent years, universities still frequency receive low student satisfaction scores in this area. Reasons for this may include discrepancies in the understanding and interpretation of the language used in assessment. As part of a wider QAA Collaborative Enhancement Project, this paper reflects on the process of performing linguistic analyses across a broad range of assessment documentation with four partner institutions in the UK. Corpus linguistic analyses were undertaken using Sketch Engine to identify frequently used and salient terms in assessment documentation across the partner institutions. This informed the next stages of the project to measure student comprehension and levels of understanding of the language identified. This paper presents the findings of the linguistic analysis and reflects on the process of working in collaborative partnership across different institutions.

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: Society for Research into Higher Education Annual Conference
• Start Date: Dec 10, 2021
• End Date: Dec 10, 2021
• Deposit Date: Dec 13, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 14, 2021
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/8256801