Integrated assignment workshops developing assessment literacy via collaborative exemplar analysis

This lightning talk explored the conceptualisation, implementation and impact of integrated assessment workshops within the University of Essex nursing programmes. These courses admit a high proportion of students from diverse and ‘non-traditional’ backgrounds (Wong, 2018; Gill, 2023), including a significant majority of mature students (82.5%), many of whom do not have recent experience of formal UK education settings. Although nursing students generally have a strong commitment to their future professional identities, their student and academic identities may be less secure (Thomas, Hovdhaugen and Sweetman, 2023). To address these challenges, learning development (LD) and nursing lecturers collaborated to develop and implement team-taught integrated assignment workshops across the curriculum to support students in making sense of assessment requirements and applying marking criteria to their own work. Grounded in ALDinHE values (ALDinHE, 2023) and the concepts of academic and social integration (Tinto, 1975, 2017), the workshops aim to demystify HE assessment practices and clarify the tacit knowledge required for students to develop autonomy, self-efficacy and self-regulation in their approach to academic assignments (Hawe, Lightfoot and Dixon, 2019). The collaborative, dialogic approach to exemplar analysis (Carter et al. 2018; Merrydew and East, 2022) supports academic and social integration, and also engages students in developing and delivering constructive feedback; an essential professional skill (Nursing and Midwifery Council, 2018). Initially, we expected that supporting students’ ability to interpret and apply marking criteria would increase first-submission pass rates and generate higher marks overall. Two pilot sessions implemented in 2022-23 showed extremely promising results for both aims. Consequently, further workshops have been implemented across the wider curriculum with the extended aims of achieving an increase in good degrees and reducing BAME awarding gaps over the next three years. A successful version of this 5-minute talk was presented at the University of Essex Education Away Day in October 2023.