External peer review of assessment: an effective approach to verifying standards?

Bloxham, Susan, Hudson, Jane, den Outer, Birgit and Price, Margaret (2015) External peer review of assessment: an effective approach to verifying standards? Higher Education Research & Development, 34 (6). pp. 1069-1082.

Preview

PDF - Accepted Version Available under License CC BY-NC Download (178kB) | Preview

Abstract

There is growing international concern to regulate and assure standards in higher education. External peer review of assessment, often called external examining, is a well-established approach to assuring standards. Australian higher education is one of several systems without a history of external examining for undergraduate programmes that is currently considering the approach. What can entrants to external examining at that level learn from the UK higher education system's long history of external examining? To that end, this paper reports on a mixed methods research project designed to investigate current practices in how academic standards are conceived, constructed and applied by external examiners and debates the implications of the findings for the development of external examining in other countries. The findings suggest that the potential of experienced peers in a subject discipline to provide the assurance of standards is limited. It concludes by presenting various possible enhancements that might be considered.

Item Type:	Article
Journal / Publication Title:	Higher Education Research & Development
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
ISSN:	1469-8366
Departments:	Professional Services > Research Office & Graduate School (ROGS)
Depositing User:	Insight Administrator
Date Deposited:	01 Oct 2014 08:19
Last Modified:	12 Jan 2024 14:01
URI:	https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/1580

Downloads