Whiting, Chris ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0006-9237-2443 (2026) Refreshing Generic Assessment Descriptors as a Tool for Learning: Reframing stanards, language and power in institutional assessment. In: Assessment in Hgher Education International Conference, 18-19th June 2026, Manchester, UK.

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Abstract

University-wide assessment standards or generic assessment descriptors, as derived from the Office for Students B Conditions and Sector Recognised Standards, play a pivotal but often under-examined role in shaping assessment cultures, influencing how standards are interpreted, enacted and experienced by staff and students. While typically positioned as quality-assurance mechanisms, their language and structure can also reproduce deficit narratives, obscure expectations, and centre assessor judgement rather than student learning (Dawson, 2017; Gonsalves and Pearson, 2023).

This session reports on a sector-informed, co-created institutional project to refresh Generic Assessment Descriptors (GADs) at a UK university, reframing them explicitly as learning tools rather than compliance instruments (Andrade, 2023). Drawing on competency-based education principles (Levine and Patrick, 2019) and critical scholarship on rubrics (Gonsalves and Pearson, 2023), assessment literacy (Dawson, 2017) and inclusive pedagogy (Hubbard and Gawthorpe, 2024), the project sought to remove subjective and deficit-oriented language, and articulate achievement through demonstrable knowledge, skills and behaviours. This are demonstrated through two of the criteria, Collaboration and Communication. Collaboration is reconceptualised around positive, observable practices that contributed to being a “good” collaborator, while the Communication criteria was broadened to account for mode, medium and audience of communications to support students in evaluating the many ways communication can be effective.

The paper outlines the design principles underpinning the refresh, the facilitative and dialogic processes used with staff and students, and the tensions encountered in balancing institutional consistency with disciplinary and pedagogic diversity. Early implementation data from pilot departments suggest improved student perceptions of clarity and fairness in assessment, greater confidence among staff in using the full range of grade boundaries, and more constructive feedback practices.

Rather than presenting a model to be replicated wholesale, this session invites participants to critically reflect on their own modular, programmatic and institutional assessment descriptors: whose values they encode, how they shape assessment practices, and how small but intentional changes in language can signal deeper shifts in power, agency and purpose in assessment. Attendees will leave with practical prompts and design questions to support locally meaningful reform of assessment criteria within their own contexts.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Status:	Published
Subjects:	L Education > L Education (General) L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB2300 Higher Education
School/Department:	School of Education, Language and Psychology
URI:	https://ray.yorksj.ac.uk/id/eprint/15293

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