Benchmark of assessment

Title
Benchmark of assessment

Project team 
AW Heringa (projectleader), Rina Vaatstra, Ria Wolleswinkel

Finance
UM Leading in Learning, pillar Assessment and Evaluation

Goal of the project
Between the law faculties in the Netherlands, large similarities exist in the manuals that are used, the exchange of teachers and the contacts with professionals in the programmes of Dutch law. However, with regard to the studyload (the number of ECTS) and the level, form and quality of the assessments, we believe that there could be more coordination at a National level. Therefore the Faculty of Law of Maastricht University invited colleagues from other faculties in judging the quality and depth of our assessments within the context of our educational material.

Description of the project
The Faculty of Law of Maastricht University invited four experts from other national faculties of Law in order to review assessments and course material of the first academic bachelor year of Dutch Law. The aim was to examine the quality, level and form of assessments in the first year. One of the remarks of the reviewers was that the course objectives were not always described clearly enough. Another issue that was mentioned was the relationship between form of assessment (for example, multiple choice questions or essay questions) and level of knowledge that was assessed. Reviewers reached agreement upon the opinion that multiple choice could definitely be used to assess applied and insight knowledge, although it will take a lot of time to construct such questions. On the other hand, assuming that using an assessment with essay questions, applied and insight knowledge is always assessed was found to be incorrect. To get an overview of the subjects and level of assessment, the advice was to make a test content specification table for every assessment. In general, all attendees agreed afterwards that it would be inspiring to look at the series of courses and assessments within a legal subject area (for example Private Law) of an entire bachelor programme. Reviewers mentioned that they would like to have such sessions regularly, also for their own assessments.