Emerson College Library: Office of Academic Assessment: Equity-Minded Assessment

Authentic, equity-minded assessment

Throughout this page, you will see references to both authentic or alternative assessment and equity-minded assessment.

What is an alternative assessment?

For some disciplines, the research essay or multiple choice exam is the assessment "standard." While this isn't the case in many creative fields, we still have some traditional, summative assessment practices we gravitate towards. Alternative assessments within your field move away from traditional, summative assessment of student learning at the end of a course, and seek to "motivate students in their approach to learning, helping them develop thinking and problem-solving skills, and allowing them to assess their own understanding of the course content" (Mazur, 2015).

"Alternative forms of assessment can allow you to see what students can and cannot do, versus what they do and do not know."

What is equity-minded assessment?

According to the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment, "For assessment to improve student learning and authentically document what students know and can do for today’s diverse students, an equitable and culturally responsive approach to assessment is needed."

NILOA outlines six principles of equity-minded assessment:

Check biases and ask reflective questions throughout the assessment process to address assumptions and positions of privilege.
Use multiple sources of evidence appropriate for the students being assessed and assessment effort.
Include student perspectives and take action based on perspectives.
Increase transparency in assessment results and actions taken.
Ensure collected data can be meaningfully disaggregated and interrogated.
Make evidence-based changes that address issues of equity that are context-specific.

Why practice equity-minded assessment?

Research shows that traditional modes of teaching and assessing learning can deepen educational inequalities. By contrast, practicing equity-minded assessment encourages us to watch for those inequalities and respond, to ensure that all students in our classes and programs have equal opportunities to succeed in their learning.

Traditional teaching may deepen inequality. Can a different approach fix it?

Equity-Minded Assessment Research

Equity-Minded Assessment Principles
Austin Community College has assembled a list of assessment practices that contribute to equity-minded assessment and equitable outcomes for students. This website includes both that list of practices as well as a Microsoft Word printable version of their handout.
Meeting the Challenges of a New Decade through Equity-Minded Assessment
Presentation by Dr. Erik Montenegro to Austin Community College Faculty entitled "Meeting the Challenges of a New Decade through Equity-Minded Assessment." The presentation focused on culturally responsive approaches to assessing our students and using that information in ways that promote our students’ success rather than continue inequities.
Montenegro, E., & Jankowski, N. A. (2020, January). A new decade for assessment: Embedding equity into assessment praxis.
(Occasional Paper No. 42). Urbana, IL: University of Illinois and Indiana University, National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment
(NILOA).

Abstract:
Entering into a new decade with an even more diversified college student population will not only require more assessment models involving students but also deeper professional development of institutional representatives key to student learning. Reflecting upon the conversations over the last three years around culturally responsive assessment and related equity and assessment discussions, this occasional paper highlights questions, insights, and future directions for the decade ahead by exploring what equitable assessment is and is not; the challenges and barriers to equitable assessment work; where the decade ahead may lead; and next steps in the conversation on equity and assessment.
Montenegro, Erick and Natasha A. Jankowski. Equity and Assessment: Moving Towards Culturally Responsive Assessment.
National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment, January 2017.

Abstract:
As colleges educate a more diverse and global student population, there is increased need to ensure every student succeeds regardless of their differences. This paper explores the relationship between equity and assessment, addressing the question: how consequential can assessment be to learning when assessment approaches may not be
inclusive of diverse learners? The paper argues that for assessment to meet the goal of improving student learning and authentically document what students know and can do, a culturally responsive approach to assessment is needed. In describing what culturally responsive assessment entails, this paper offers a rationale as to why change is necessary, proposes a way to conceptualize the place of students and culture in assessment, and introduces three ways to help make assessment culturally responsive.
Presentation summary for Meeting the Challenges of a New-Decade

Inoue, Asao B. (2015). Antiracist Writing Assessment Ecologies: Teaching and Assessing Writing for a Socially Just Future.
The WAC Clearinghouse; Parlor Press. https://doi.org/10.37514/PER-B.2015.0698

Description:
In Antiracist Writing Assessment Ecologies, Asao B. Inoue theorizes classroom writing assessment as a complex system that is "more than" its interconnected elements. To explain how and why antiracist work in the writing classroom is vital to literacy learning, Inoue incorporates ideas about the white racial habitus that informs dominant discourses in the academy and other contexts. Inoue helps teachers understand the unintended racism that often occurs when teachers do not have explicit antiracist agendas in their assessments. Drawing on his own teaching and classroom inquiry, Inoue offers a heuristic for developing and critiquing writing assessment ecologies that explores seven elements of any writing assessment ecology: power, parts, purposes, people, processes, products, and places.