By evaluation of learning, we mean a process that determines whether the student has an understanding of what has been taught and to what extent this is being used. For example, the assessment of a practical design project involved the allocation of a grade based on design proficiency criteria rather than learning criteria. However, we may have been able to evaluate learning through a process of progressive assessment. It was presumed that by assessing design work we had been assessing how much a student has understood. This we know through experience has not always been the case.
Some students can achieve a proficient result without fully understanding the principles involved.
Final feedback, which facilitates learning, has been currently intrinsically linked to the previous assessment process. As a result students have appeared more interested in a reward system rather than analysing their own progress or evaluating their performance. It was observed that different units have different objectives and that the employment of one methodological approach to assessment cannot address these differences. In July 1998, at an in-house Teaching and Learning Workshop, some of the problems and possible solutions were discussed. In order to address some of the above problems we decided to use a specific methodological approach appropriate for each of the units taught and to also separate assessment from feedback.