I am unit leader for Fashion Histories on MA Fashion Cultures and Histories, with some agency to modify briefs and Learning Outcomes. The unit has two assessed submissions: a review (Element 1) and an essay (Element 2). It begins an implicit journey towards dissertation and beyond, as well as establishing wider expectations for cohorts with diverse prior education and education gaps.
Students struggle to meet the LO for Enquiry (fig. 1), which was inherited from a previous course iteration. Some also struggle to grasp the specificity of choosing a single primary source to analyse and need support with academic referencing.
Realising uneven student familiarity with academic research across the cohort, I introduce google scholar early, signpost the library induction and citethemrightonline, while pointing to the collateral benefit of learning referencing conventions by attending to set readings (Dewey 1997 [1938]). I address the difference between primary and secondary sources, which some find difficult to grasp. At another university, I have done activities on this topic within the library and intend to explore this possibility at UAL.
I reiterate and elaborate on LOs in briefings, verbally offering examples to students unused to shaping their own arguments and research. Following John Biggs’ (2007) research on ‘constructive alignment’, avenues appropriate for the Enquiry criterion are covered in week one and I remind students at interim seminars. I aim to modify LOs in line with guidance (UAL a and b), but currently, to avoid making them too prescriptive (Addison, 2014; Biggs, 2012), I rather offer detail and examples in a seminar and make slides available. Students also grade an exemplar assignment and participate in a peer review exercise. This has worked well in helping them understand the process and alignment.
On other courses, my assessment is subject to scrutiny by unit leaders and moderators, contributing to a culture of surveillance (Addison, 2014, p. 317 drawing on Ball and Olmedo, 2013). With this MA, as Unit Leader with a closer relationship to the cohort, tensions around assessment centre rather on the students. Their essays overwhelmingly fit within a B- to A- span. This makes it hard to gauge a spectrum of ability. I am also more exposed to their response to assessment and these students are often ambitious and easily disappointed.
Marked improvements in some students’ research and communications skills, from Element 1 to Element 2, demonstrate the efficacy of careful assessment feedback at early stages. While feedback was praised in course committee meetings, some students wanted further debriefing. This isn’t possible in timetabling but might be addressed in group seminar or informal opportunities, going forward.
Academic research and writing can map well onto LOs well because both are text based. Further, this MA differs to arts courses that stress the importance of ‘not knowing’ (Addison, 2014, p. 322). Writing and its teaching, as related to ‘rhetoric’, are cultural and ideological, arising ‘out of a time and place, a peculiar social context’ (Berlin, 1984, p. 1). They are influenced by culturally instituted language patterns and education (Hande Uysal, 2008). My teaching maintains a particular logic to the expectations of an essay, its contents and organisation, which I am aware by observation, coheres with colleagues and is often shaped by western traditions. We account for creativity and guard against biases, but the essay is more clearly defined than an arts outcome.
Bibliography
Addison, N. (2014) ‘Doubting learning outcomes in higher education contexts: from performativity towards emergence and negotiation’, in The International Journal of Art & Design Education, 33(3) pp. 313-325.
Ball, S. J. and Olmedo, a. (2013) ‘Carre of the self, resistance and subjectivity under neoliberal governmentalities, in Critical studies in Education, 54(1) pp. 85-96.
Berlin, J. (1984) Writing instruction in nineteenth-century American colleges. Illinois: South Illinois University Press.
Biggs, J. (2007) ‘Using constructive alignment in outcomes-based teaching and learning’, in Biggs, J. B. and Tang, C. S-k (eds.) Teaching for quality learning at university. Maidenhead: Open University Press. pp. 50-63.
Biggs, J. (2012) ‘What the student does: teaching for enhanced learning’, in Higher Education, Research & Development. 31(1) pp. 39-55.
Dewey, J. (1997 [1938]) Experience and education. New York: Touchstone.
Hande Uysal, H. (2008) ‘Tracing the culture behind writing: rhetorical patterns and bidirectional transfer in L1 and L2 essays of Turkish writers in relation to educational context’, in Journal of Second Language Writing, 17(3) pp. 183-207.
UAL (a) Course Designer: Crafting Learning Outcomes. Accessed 10th March 2025 <https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0027/190395/Course-Designer-4-Crafting-Learning-Outcomes-PDF-255KB.pdf>
UAL (b) Inclusive Marking of Written Work Guidelines for Staff. Accessed 10th March 2025 <https://assessmentfeedback.arts.ac.uk/inclusive.php#:~:text=Inclusivity%20is%20a%20core%20value,noting%20the%20highlighted%20points%20especially>
