Journal Club Article: Smith, C. (2008) Design-focused evaluation. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 33:6, 631-645. [abstract]

“The approach develops from the idea that all educational designs rely on instructional alignment, implicitly or explicitly, and succeed or fail to the extent to which the implementation of that alignment is effective.”

Calvin Smith

The Aim: to implicity link teacher activity, course design, and quality of learning to the intended learning outcomes.

The How: Link the intended learning outcomes (ILOs) to students awareness of these learning strategies. The educational designed evaluation, similar to the ILOs will need to be known to the students at the start program and outline the design details.

The Challenges: The evaluation will likely be specific to the student, teacher, and course, so inter-reliability and comparing previous evaluations for validity is not

From the learning organisation perspective (work, higher education, university) the construct of ILOs may be interesting but do learners? Will they really match the intended learning focus whether taught, enacted, or explecit to the evaluation. Will they even complete an evaluation, and how does the time frame across a course and the timing of delivery impact on the evaluation?

What is the impact on the relationship between teacher and student in the evaluation

Feedback Opportunities: Learning about any inconsistencies within the curriculum as experienced by students, or low quality teaching is worthy of inquiry.

There are 3 types of evaluation question:

• Methods focused – focus on the characteristics of the teaching
• Learning outcomes focused – the quality of the ILOs
• Design focused – link teaching and design aspects of the education

Further Reading:

Nursing Education Network. (2021). Constructive Alignment.

Nursing Education Network. (2016). Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

Nursing Education Network. (2021). Teaching Learning Outcomes (Infographic).

Nursing Education Network. (2019). ILO Presentation (YouTube)