Lydia Arnold

During my deliberations and discussions about assessment and feedback over the summer, I’ve been thinking about something I’m calling headroom—the gap between what I imagine students might do to fulfil a task and what they could potentially do. It’s an imagination space, a place within an assessment that allows students to interpret tasks and showcase their strengths and individuality. Perhaps there are other names for this. I suspect this idea is not entirely original, as it links to creativity, scaffolding, and concepts of evaluative judgement.

Sometimes, the guide rails we provide for assessment can be overly restrictive, and I believe this can make the assessment process unnecessarily stressful for students. Too many assessment parameters may also erode the confidence students develop in their personal judgement when responding to tasks. Detailed instructions—such as section headers, coverage checklists, specific format requirements, or the number of figures and tables—are often included as an act of kindness to support students. However, they can leave little room for students to interpret the task in their own way and add their personal flair. I suspect these rule-based considerations may foster a compliance mindset.

A lack of headroom also manifests through assessment criteria, particularly at the top end of the grade continuum. In a rubric, we can indicate ways to be excellent or prescribe our own “right way” to tackle a task. This leaves little room for difference. Because the work I mark every year brings something new from students in terms of presentation, style, or perspective, I want to give room to reward and recognise the unexpected. I find it helpful to use criteria that allow students to exceed expectations in ways we might not have anticipated. Crafting such criteria is challenging but possible. Using marking socialisation approaches alongside criteria—using exemplars, workshop activities, and more—to determine what “good” could look like offers a more mature approach to evaluative judgement, open to possibility, compared to a solely rule-based “educator first” approach. I understand that “absolutes” are comforting and necessary for grading purposes, but if criteria act as indicators or a framework, we can still leave space for growth within and beyond the educator’s original interpretation.

Of course, there is a pragmatic balance to be struck between guidance and structure. The need for structure may vary at different points in a student’s journey. Tightly structured assessments are sometimes essential—perhaps to meet a standard in a professionally aligned course. Not everything can flex, but a lot can. Headroom is a delicate dance between structure and freedom, and one we should be more conscious of—in the design of tasks and the development of criteria.

The need to explicitly consider this balance is made more urgent by the rapid pace of change. What seems possible or even ideal in July when designing an assessment could be redefined by new technologies introduced by September!

I came across a fitting quote from a student nominating a colleague for excellent assessment practice. When describing “excellent” assessment practice, they said it has “enough structure to be clear what information to include, but also … space for creative interpretation.” (I must credit my colleague Joe Roberts, who received this feedback and the associated assessment and feedback award). This student captures the essence of what I am calling headroom.

As we design assessments, let’s consider the balance. Are we leaving enough space for individuality? Are we providing enough room for creativity and personal flair? Or are we standardising to the point of stifling creativity, inadvertently promoting compliance as part of a hidden curriculum? Let’s consider how assessments can give students the space to be excellent in a variety of ways