Meeting Higher Education Expectations in the Digital Age and Reliability of Assessment in E-Learning Settings

As online and blended learning increasingly become common, higher educators and researchers need to rethink fundamental issues of teaching, learning, and assessment in these non-traditional spaces. Fundamental issues of assessment and in particular reliability have not been well understood despite proliferation of e-learning in higher education. The chapter begins with a justification of the need to reconceptualize assessment and associated fundamental issues in e-learning settings. The author further articulates the distinction between reliability within the context of assessment for learning (formative assessment) and assessment of learning (summative assessment). The core characteristics of reliability are critically examined and exemplified using research insights in relation to how achievement of these characteristics enhances reliability and by implication validity of assessment. The identified characteristics include opportunities for explicit learning goals and shared meaning, documentation, and monitoring evidence of learning; and multiple sources of evidence of learning and multi-dimensional perspectives. Finally, conclusions and recommendations are offered.