How can assessment policy and practices be more compassionate?
Dr Neil Currant, Senior Educational Developer, University of Bedfordshire.
In the wake of the pandemic, higher education has seen a growing recognition of the need for compassion in teaching, learning, and assessment. Assessment impacts on student wellbeing, equity, and engagement. This workshop explores how assessment policies and practices can be reimagined through the lens of compassion, moving beyond procedural fairness to relational, inclusive, and humane approaches.
Compassionate assessment is not simply about being kind; it involves motivated attention to suffering and motivated action to alleviate it (Gilbert, 2017). It challenges assumptions that standardisation and quality assurance ensures fairness and instead asks: How can we design assessment that supports all students to thrive?
Drawing on the QAA-funded Compassionate Assessment Network, this session introduces the Compassionate Relationships in HE framework, which identifies eight relational dimensions across students, tutors, and institutions. These include self-compassion, compassion between peers, and institutional compassion for both students and staff. By considering these relationships, we gain a fuller picture of how assessment affects, and is shaped by, human connection.
Participants will explore how current policies (e.g. mitigation, late penalties, grading practices) may unintentionally harm mental health or reinforce inequities. We will examine how compassionate alternatives, such as negotiated deadlines, pass/fail grading, and inclusive assessment design, can foster trust, creativity, and belonging.
Participants will also engage with practical examples of compassionate assessment in action, including feedback practices, and assessment design. Through collaborative activities and discussion, they will explore how to embed compassion into their own contexts. The session will support participants in identifying one area of assessment policy or practice they can redesign to be more compassionate and offer ideas to advocate for change within their institutions.
Gilbert, P. (2017). Compassion: Concepts, research and applications. Routledge.
Biography:
Neil Currant is a Senior Educational Developer and assessment lead at the University of Bedfordshire and previously Head of Educational Development at Bedfordshire, Oxford Brookes and the Royal Veterinary College. Neil has been supporting teaching, learning and assessment practices in higher education for twenty years with expertise in belonging, compassion, inclusion and assessment.
Neil co-founded the Compassionate Assessment in HE Network and is currently researching assessment practice related to compassion, the affective impact of feedback and ungrading. He has been involved in funded projects with JISC, Advance HE and the QAA on a range of topics including compassionate feedback and assessment, the use of e-portfolios in assessment, and ethnicity awarding gaps.
Links to relevant selected work and projects:
Belonging research – Teaching Insights journal.
Rethinking assessment? Research into the affective impact of higher education grading
Belonging project – https://www.qaa.ac.uk/membership/collaborative-enhancement-projects/assessment/belonging-through-assessment-pipelines-of-compassion
Compassionate Assessment Network Project – https://www.qaa.ac.uk/membership/collaborative-enhancement-projects/assessment/compassionate-assessment-in-higher-education
ahenetwork.org 