The impact of assessment practices in the university setting upon the learning behaviour of student physiotherapists

Assessment has been shown to direct student learning behaviour by \ninfluencing the quality and quantity of effort, the aspects of the course syllabus \nthat will be attended to and the qualitative outcomes of learning. From the late \n1960s through to the 1990s a wealth of education research was undertaken to \nexplore student learning behaviour and this shaped the design and delivery of \nmodern day curricula, including the emergence of 'constructive alignment'. With \nthis, distinct efforts to express learning outcomes which link to assessment \nprocedures were made and criteria against which performance standards were \nto be judged were published. Along with such initiatives the variety of \nassessment methods also increased, yet little evaluation of the impact of such \nchanges on student learning behaviour has been made. However, a recent \nreport submitted to the Higher Education Academy suggests that the modern \nteaching and assessment environment is associated with a range of negative \nlearning responses. These include less effort, less coverage of the syllabus and \na less deep approach to studying. \nThis work examined the assessment characteristics of an undergraduate \nphysiotherapy programme situated in a modern university with an educational \nphilosophy of constructive alignment. It considers the relationship between the \nassessment environment and resultant student learning behaviour. The study \nshowed that students endeavoured to adopt a deep approach to their learning \nand were engendered with a professional responsibility to commit themselves \nto a personal stance of understanding and meaning-making. It is suggested \nthat this outcome is due to the vocational nature of the programme and the \ninherent community of practice that this brings, and the associated affiliation of \nthe profession to the concept of clinical reasoning. \nA further finding questions the assumed pedagogic stance surrounding deep \nand surface approaches to learning. It is suggested that a deep learning motive \n— achieving assessment strategy may well describe many learners and befits a \ncontemporary, mass higher education system.