I had to put up with it, so should they!

On Nov 9 2011 Professor David Boud gave a lecture to academics at Swinburne University of Technology.  In this lecture, Professor Boud questioned the assessment practices used by academics and made a clear distinction between summative assessment and formative assessment.  His primary point being that formative assessment - that is to say, assessment intended to assist student learning rather than rank student performance - is far more beneficial to students.  He went on to discuss how formative assessment given appropriately could assist student learning, reduce actual and perceived injustices in the education system and improve student motivation and retention, providing benefits both immediately and into the student's long term future. He talked about struggling first year students as an example of the benefits of useful formative feedback and how such feedback could reduce their dependence on teachers and improve their own judgement setting them up as life-long independent learners.

In the questions that followed this talk, one audience member raised the issue of how difficult she and others had found first year university, with the balancing of jobs, family, a new system to learn, etc. Her claim seemed to be that such difficulties, including those imposed by seemingly arbitrary marks allocated for student work, were in fact a benefit as they developed her "resilience" with the implication that such resilience was a desirable and beneficial outcome of our higher education system.

This attitude astounded me, particularly as it comes from within the field of academia which espouses the value of clear and critical thought.  If we break this logic down to look at its implications my amazement becomes (hopefully) more apparent. Firstly it completely ignores the benefits of Boud's suggestions, based on his extensive research, showing how students can better achieve the stated outcomes of higher education by improving their judgement and both current and future intellectual performance outside of the education system. Furthermore, it denegrates the idea that students should find their university experience as motivating and rewarding as possible.   But the strangest thing about this suggestion is what it proposes as more important than educational outcomes. Resilience is not a stated outcome of any university that I am aware of and the problems associated with such an outcome become apparent if we take this proposal to its logical extreme. To do so, let us assume we make the primary outcome of higher education the development of an individual's "resilience".  Firstly, we have no idea what this term really means. Secondly, we have no clear theory as to how this can be provided in an educational environment or whether it currently is anyway, as opposed to the mountains of research on other educational outcomes. Thirdly, it is not clear that developing resilience within an entirely artificial environment, such as a university system, provides any benefit in the real world beyond that environment and it also presumes that such an environment is good place in which to develop this ability.
If resilience is to be a major outcome of a university, and one sufficient to trump any other possible educational improvements, one would at least expect that universities could make this clear to students rather than leaving it as part of a "hidden-curriculum" as, if this atttitude is widespread, this is exaclty what it is.

The idea of a "hidden-curriculum" is not new, Illich (1971) identifies this conceit in our school systems that "only through schooling can an individual prepare himself for adulthood in society" (Alternative to Schooling, Saturday Review, 19 June, 1971). This same conceit seems evident in the question asked of Boud. Furthermore, this question reeks of the sentiment and selfishness of "I had to do it, and it did me no harm". Examining this question, perhaps it did more harm than you realise.