Assessment

6. Assessment Strategies and Tools

Successful assessment cannot be conducted without carefully selected strategies and instruments that ensure clear, consistent and transparent grading. For assessment to be purposeful, criteria and standards must be defined in advance and made available to students. Clear communication of expectations is crucial for building trust in the assessment system and guiding student effort toward desired learning outcomes.

Higher education teachers have a wide range of tools and methods at their disposal. These include analytical and holistic rubrics that allow detailed evaluation of different aspects of student work, closed-ended tests useful for quick knowledge checks and open-ended questions that encourage analysis, synthesis and critical thinking. For example, a teacher may use rubrics to assess seminar papers, conduct a standardised multiple-choice test to check basic concepts or design a complex question requiring argumentation, such as: “Compare two theoretical approaches to communication and explain their advantages in a teaching context.” Increasingly, portfolios, projects, self-assessment and peer assessment are used to strengthen student autonomy and reflective skills.

Moodle, as one of the most widely used learning management systems, offers numerous built-in activities that support effective and flexible assessment of student achievement. Teachers can use activities such as Quiz, Assignment and Workshop to monitor student progress and provide feedback. The Quiz activity supports various question types, including multiple choice, true/false, matching, short answer and essay questions, with options for automatic grading and customised feedback. Additional features such as time limits, random question selection and multiple test versions help ensure fair assessment.

The Assignment activity allows students to submit work in various formats (text, documents, multimedia), while teachers can assess submissions using predefined criteria, including rubrics and numerical scales. Feedback can be provided in textual form, as annotations, or via audio/video, further personalising communication with students.

The Workshop activity is particularly useful for formative assessment, as it enables peer assessment whereby students evaluate each other’s work according to predefined criteria, fostering the development of evaluative and reflective skills.