Posters
What can posters assess?
Academic posters are most authentically used in disciplines where poster presentations are part of academic dissemination activities, e.g. science, medical sciences and social sciences. Posters are less frequently found in the Arts and Humanities, but there is no reason why they could not be adopted. It may however, be more challenging to communicate standards to students without strong understanding and experience of poster creation / observation.
As a visual medium they best lend themselves to topics where data visualisation, visual imagery and narrative are essential elements of student work. They can be used to disseminate research, demonstrate understanding of content knowledge, or document process (after the fact).
Producing non-academic posters might also be used as an assessment task, e.g. publicity or educational poster. This would assess how well students were able to communicate with a variety of audiences for a variety of purposes.
What alternative assessment methods could I choose?
The way in which the assessment task is presented to students will direct their effort. If the task is introduced as “create a poster” rather than “carry out independent research and summarize what you have learned in an accessible manner to a public audience,” it is likely that students will focus on the creation of the poster rather than the learning that goes into developing the material for one (Legget et al. 2014).
In addition to outlining the purpose of the poster, it is important to offer clear guidance on how the poster is going to be assessed; the emphasis placed upon design, clarity of text, visual presentation of data, and content (including design decisions on what to include and what not to include). This will, of course, be informed by the intended learning outcomes of the module. If it is the first time that students have produced a poster it may be useful to scaffold their introduction by offering them a framework, and / or a template to populate, perhaps as a formative assessment.
Criteria for poster assessment will depend on the intended learning outcomes but might include (Wallace et al. 2016):
- content
- research
- aesthetic components
- processes and skills such as locating and selecting evidence
- organising and integrating information
- using evidence to reach a conclusion
- presenting and communicating information.
If there are specific requirements for the poster, e.g. include a graph, headings, graphics, references these should also be incorporated into the assessment criteria.
Assessing aesthetic and creative artefacts inevitably admits a degree of subjectivity. Working with students to develop their assessment literacy, and specifically teaching them what constitutes good design can mitigate against challenges to assessor judgements. If peer assessment is being used it is even more essential that students understand and use assessment criteria effectively.
Powney & Short in Havemann and Sherman (eds., 2017) provide a useful case study in chapter 8: Assessing Veterinary Students Using Posters and Online Lectures.