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Assessment in Higher Education: The Potential for a Community of Practice to Improve Inter-marker Reliability

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  • Ian P. Herbert
  • John Joyce
  • Trevor Hassall

Abstract

The design, delivery and assessment of a complete educational scheme, such as a degree programme or a professional qualification course, is a complex matter. Maintaining alignment between the stated aims of the curriculum and the scoring of student achievement is an overarching concern. The potential for drift across individual aspects of an educational scheme (teaching, learning and assessment), together with emerging criticism in extant literature of the reliability of marking processes, suggests that, in practice, maintaining alignment might be more difficult than had previously been assumed.In this paper, the concept of a Community of Practice (CoP) is employed as an analytical lens through which the notion of a markers' standardisation meeting that focuses on maintaining alignment between the curriculum, the marking scheme and the scoring of student scripts can be critically examined. Given that the aims and subject content of management learning are both multidimensional and contextual, such meetings have the potential to develop a shared approach to the elaboration and application of the marking scheme. A further role of the CoP is in the calibration of markers to accommodate further variations in student responses as they arise in the actual marking process. In this respect, the CoP has both descriptive and prescriptive potential in terms of aiding the development of markers of professional accounting examinations and also, we suggest, within accounting education more generally.

Suggested Citation

  • Ian P. Herbert & John Joyce & Trevor Hassall, 2014. "Assessment in Higher Education: The Potential for a Community of Practice to Improve Inter-marker Reliability," Accounting Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(6), pages 542-561, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:accted:v:23:y:2014:i:6:p:542-561
    DOI: 10.1080/09639284.2014.974195
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Karen Handley & Andrew Sturdy & Robin Fincham & Timothy Clark, 2006. "Within and Beyond Communities of Practice: Making Sense of Learning Through Participation, Identity and Practice," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(3), pages 641-653, May.
    2. Alessia Contu & Hugh Willmott, 2003. "Re-Embedding Situatedness: The Importance of Power Relations in Learning Theory," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 14(3), pages 283-296, June.
    3. Joanne Roberts, 2006. "Limits to Communities of Practice," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(3), pages 623-639, May.
    4. John Seely Brown & Paul Duguid, 1991. "Organizational Learning and Communities-of-Practice: Toward a Unified View of Working, Learning, and Innovation," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 2(1), pages 40-57, February.
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    Cited by:

    1. Wolcott, Susan K. & Sargent, Matthew J., 2021. "Critical thinking in accounting education: Status and call to action," Journal of Accounting Education, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    2. Apostolou, Barbara & Dorminey, Jack W. & Hassell, John M. & Rebele, James E., 2015. "Accounting education literature review (2013–2014)," Journal of Accounting Education, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 69-127.

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