Synonyms

Constructive alignment

Definition

Alignment as used in curriculum theory refers to a deliberate and intrinsic connection between aspects of the curriculum and assessment methods, and ideally including teaching methods, institutional policies, and climate. Teaching and learning then take place in an integrated system, in which all components interact with and support each other. In this article, alignment is addressed primarily in the postsecondary context.

Theoretical Background

The concept of alignment in curriculum has been around for many years. Aligning assessment tasks to what it is intended students should learn, and grading student on how well they reach preset standards, as in criterion-referenced assessment (CRA), is an example of one form of alignment. An example of nonaligned assessment is when students are graded not on what they have learned as such, but on how they compare with each other, as in norm-referenced assessment (NRA). As for the broader curriculum, Tyler (1949) talked about integration between aims, teaching, and assessment, and later, English (1975) argued for a “tight relationship” between the tested curriculum, the taught curriculum, and the written curriculum if optimal test results are to be achieved. Cohen (1987), focusing on the effects of CRA on learning, called such alignment the “magic bullet” in increasing student performance. Because students learn what they perceive they will be tested on, an aligned test means that the students will be focusing on what it is intended that they should be learning.

Outcomes-based education (OBE) makes the link between what-is-to-be-learned and the criteria of assessment rather more explicit than it is in CRA itself, because what-is-to-be-learned in OBE is not a content topic as such, but how the teacher would intend the students’ behavior to change as a result of their learning a topic or group of topics. The assessment is in terms of how well the students achieve those intended learning outcomes; the assessment and the outcome require the same activity. Many universities claim to address graduate attributes or university learning goals, such as lifelong learning, critical thinking and the like, which are themselves learning outcomes and thus lend themselves to be addressed by OBE. The traditional curriculum on the other hand is topic-based, which makes alignment between the topics in the tested curriculum, in the written curriculum and in the taught curriculum harder to achieve as this requires alignment on several fronts. A further difficulty with topic-based assessment is that it is mediated by the students’ “understanding” of the topic, a vague term that needs to be firmly pinned down, but often is not.

According to constructivist learning theory, students construct knowledge through their own activities, and these activities too need to be aligned to the intended learning outcomes. As Shuell (1986, p. 429) says:

If students are to learn desired outcomes in a reasonably effective manner, then the teacher’s fundamental task is to get students to engage in learning activities that are likely to result in their achieving those outcomes. . . . what the student does is actually more important in determining what is learned than what the teacher does.

This important statement introduces the notion that the teacher, in addition to aligning assessment to the intended learning outcomes, needs also to engage student’s learning activities in a way that is likely to achieve the intended learning outcomes.

Constructive alignment (Biggs and Tang 2007) is a design for teaching that operationalizes these points. In constructive alignment (CA), we need to:

  1. 1.

    Describe the intended learning outcomes (ILOs) in the form of a verb that denotes how the content or topics are to be dealt with and in what context.

  2. 2.

    Create a learning environment using teaching/learning activities (TLAs) that address that verb and therefore are likely to bring about the intended outcome.

  3. 3.

    Use assessment tasks (ATs) that also contain that verb, together with rubrics that enable one to judge how well students’ performances meet the criteria.

  4. 4.

    Transform these judgments into standard grades.

The verb in the ILO becomes the common link by which alignment can be achieved between the ILO, the teaching/learning activities, and the assessment tasks. Some ILOs would require low-level verbs such as “describe,” “enumerate,” “list”; others middle level, such as “explain,” “analyze,” “apply to familiar domains,” “solve standard problems,” while at an advanced level, appropriate verbs would include “hypothesize,” “reflect,” “apply to unseen domains or problems.” The teaching/learning activities and assessment tasks for that ILO would then address that same verb. For example, an ILO in educational psychology might read: “solve a disciplinary problem in the classroom by applying expectancy-value theory.” The TLA might be a case study of a particular classroom situation requiring the students to apply the theory and solve the problem, while the assessment would be in terms of how well the problem was solved. Grading is best achieved using rubrics by which the quality of the solution as a whole may be judged. Typically in a semester length course, there would be no more than five or six ILOs, with some ILOs addressing several topics.

Traditionally in university teaching, both the pedagogy and the assessment have been held constant, the lecture and tutorial being the default in many subjects and the invigilated examination the default assessment method. These methods of teaching and assessment do not align at all well with high-level ILOs especially. Large classes and limited resources may make it difficult to build the same verb into the teaching/learning activities and assessment tasks, in which case the teaching and the assessment should be as congruent as possible with the intended learning outcome. In implementing constructive alignment, it is useful to use action research, by keeping a data base on the quality of student learning and adjusting aspects of alignment in repeated cycles, in order to achieve quality enhancement in teaching.

Preliminary studies suggest that a constructively aligned system is effective in promoting learning, particularly in achieving higher order outcomes, because all the components in the system are designed to reinforce each other in supporting learning, while students themselves are clearer not only in what they are to learn and to what standard, but on how they might best go about learning it. Accordingly, in many systems worldwide, quality assurance of teaching assumes that alignment is a good indicator of a quality teaching environment.

Important Scientific Research and Open Questions

Constructive alignment is a design for teaching rather than a theory as such, so that research and development, and evaluation studies under different conditions and contexts, are the kinds of studies that are most needed at this stage. Several studies of individual courses have been reported, but large-scale meta-analyses are needed so that the effect sizes of constructively aligned courses can be compared with traditional teaching, and with each other. For example, it is possible that constructive alignment may be more effective in professional courses than in the basic arts and sciences, as the outcomes in the former are more easily definable in terms of what graduates are suppose to be able to do, but this has yet to be established.

Cross-References

Action Research on Learning

Alignment of Learning, Teaching and Assessment

Constructivism and Learning

Curriculum and Learning

Schema(s)