Conceptualising evaluative judgement for sustainable assessment in higher education

How can we usefully think about developing evaluative judgement? This chapter introduces a framework for evaluative judgement that underpins discussion in subsequent chapters. We start by identifying what we mean by evaluative judgement and examining why it is a necessary idea for organising courses and designing assessments. We suggest that the development of students’ evaluative judgement is an important and underexplored aspect of assessment which enables us to consider the longer-term influence of assessment activities on learning. We then describe the historical evolution of the term “evaluative judgement”, and its related antecedents in the assessment literature. In one sense, evaluative judgement may not be a new concept, in that many graduates would have developed this capability.However, we argue that considering it explicitly and systematically, and using it as an integrative and organising framework for designing assessment in higher education, contributes an important and novel perspective. We conclude by examining how common assessment practices – such as rubrics, exemplars, self assessment, peer assessment and feedback – can be better tailored towards developing students’ evaluative judgement.