Helping students understand the standards of work expected in an essay: using exemplars in mathematics pre-service education classes

In universities where standards-based assessment is advocated, common practice involves organising written descriptions of criteria and standards in marking guides to ensure greater consistency in marking. Marking guides are often also distributed to students prior to assessment to scaffold their learning. However, research shows that many students find written descriptions of standards difficult to understand, and even when students use a marking guide to mark short assignment exemplars, they rate the exemplars more useful and use them more than the marking guide in completing their assignment. In this qualitative study, we use a constructivist framework to explore students’ perceptions of their experience of participating in marking, and student- and teacher-led discussion of essay exemplars in class. Students found the marking guide useful for marking the essays but thought that the exemplars and the teacher’s explanation together provided them with a clearer understanding of expected standards. The ‘marking class’ prompted students to reflect on the quality of their future work. The implication for teachers is that marking guides are helpful to students only when students use them to critically evaluate exemplars. To help students understand what constitutes good quality work, teachers need to allocate class time to explaining their grading decisions.