THE EXAMINATION GAME REVISITED: AN ANALYSIS OF ASSESSMENT PRACTICES IN ONLINE COURSES

Agneta Hult, PhD, Senior Lecturer, Department of Education, Umeå University, Sweden

This paper is a contribution to the literature on formative assessment. It comprises an analysis of assessment practices embedded in courses organized through the Swedish Net University. The data for this paper is drawn from course documents and their associated assessment protocols prepared for courses at different levels in a variety of disciplines. The analysis focussed on if, and in what sense assessment in these online courses could be characterised as promoting learning and also on what kind of knowledge and abilities1 the course assignments expected the students to demonstrate. The conclusion is that in some aspects the analysed course assessments do promote learning, in others they don’t and that a majority of the assignments expected the students to comprehend relevant theories and apply them on problems/cases.