Faculty collaboration in the grading of assessments in English courses for healthcare students at a Hong Kong university: issues of validity and reliability

Abstract

Our definition of co-assessment in this presentation is collaborative assessment of assignments by the English language lecturers and the content specialists. For example, in “English for Clinical Pharmacy” English lecturers assess drug information documents for genre awareness, language and writing ethics, while pharmacy professors grade the accuracy of the drug information. In “English for Clinical Clerkship” English lecturers grade the student’s oral presentation skills and language, while medical faculty staff judge the students’ depth of analysis of ethical case studies. The aim of including co-grading of assessments in these courses, is so that the assessments are seen not as ‘just an English assignment’ but an opportunity for students to demonstrate their proficiency in both language and content to a ‘high-stakes’ audience – their professors. It also allows students to get feedback from experts with different expertise in either language or (highly technical) content. This kind of co-assessment is usually viewed by EAP/ESP professionals to be successful and worthwhile due to perceived authenticity. However, a number of challenges have arisen. This presentation aims to present the challenges that we have encountered in the implementation of co-assessment in our Medical English courses. Apart from the logistical challenges that this type of assessment presents, issues of validity and reliability persist. These issues include separation of language and content, marker reliability, weighting of grades, contradiction in feedback and double penalising. The presentation will elaborate on the issues encountered in the design and implementation of co-assessment in these courses and conclude with a discussion of solutions to some of these issues. Keywords: assessment, authenticity, language vs content, English for medicine.