Hurdles to Learning Assessment Quality: Their Detrimental Effects on Student Learning

The study investigated hurdles to the quality of student learning assessment by examining issues related to assessment procedures and practices, learners and learning, learning resources and test constructs, and test admin and feedback. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected from two Ethiopian universities using two types of questionnaires. The results have shown that learning assessment practices and procedures were inundated with a number of hurdles. Among them were academic dishonesty, a dearth of giving timely feedback, assessment procedures’ failure to direct learners to higher-order learning outcomes, test construct underrepresentation and irrelevance, and learners’ temptation to work for good grades rather than for acquiring the required competencies. These were the major hurdles that had detrimental effects on student learning at the universities. It has, therefore, been recommended that universities and their communities should ensure meaningful and useful assessment of student learning by putting in place effective and quality assessment that constitutes deep learning guided by effective feedback towards the achievement of learning outcomes (LOs).