2. Assignment Brief Design:
E. Consistency
These guidelines refer to consistency in the use of language in the brief.
"We were confused because the assignment was called a ‘Business Case Study’ but everywhere else it was called ’your essay’ …"
Naming
To ensure effective communication and dialogue about the assignment: Give the assignment a formal title and use this consistently when referring to the assignment, both within the brief itself and when communicating about it elsewhere with both students and staff. Students and staff alike may be involved in a number of courses all of which have assignments entitled for example, ‘Assignment 1’. Text type To ensure unnecessary requests for clarification are kept to a minimum: Aim to be consistent in the term used to refer to the text type students are required to produce. For example, using the terms ‘Reflective Commentary’ and ‘Learning Log’ to refer to the same required text may suggest two differing discourse types to students or perhaps lead them to waste time checking whether indeed two text types are required. Task To ensure unnecessary requests for clarification are kept to a minimum: Aim to avoid inconsistency in references to the assignment task components. For example, where the core task stipulates drawing on ‘two theoretical approaches’ but later in the brief, further guidelines provided refer to ‘your chosen theoretical approach’. Assessment Jargon To ensure students’ cognitive resources are not wasted in the interpretation of unnecessarily competing academic terms: Aim to consistently use the same term for the same assessment related concept. For example, when initially referring to the ‘assignment’ itself, avoid then referring to it subsequently as the ‘assessment’, the ‘coursework’ or the ‘task’. |
Discipline Jargon To ensure clarity and facilitate student and staff communication: Aim to be consistent in the use of subject discipline terms, avoiding the use of multiple terms in the assignment brief to refer to the same or parallel concepts. This consistency in use of language in the brief itself extends to ensuring all staff working on the course employ the same vocabulary when referring to the concept in question. If however, it is one of the assessed learning outcomes that students develop or exhibit their familiarity with these multiple terms in processing the brief, then this would not apply. Criteria
To ensure students can effectively relate assessment and feedback criteria to the assignment task itself: Aim to be consistent in use of terms within all elements of the brief: the learning outcomes, the grading or feedback forms and the main body of the brief itself. For example, the learning outcomes for a case study might refer to ‘action plans’, while the assessment criteria to ‘targets’ and in the assignment brief itself, this then be referred to as ‘recommendations’. |
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