Maintaining alignment in management education : the potential for drift in assessment

The paper explores the issues involved in maintaining operational alignment between curriculum aims, teaching and the assessment of student learning. Whilst various conceptual frameworks can help to shape learning outcomes that reflect a constructivist approach across an aligned scheme of education there are, nonetheless, opportunities for misalignment to occur with the potential to significantly dilute the aims of the curriculum. A particular focus of the paper is the use of verbs to articulate learning outcomes and how these follow through into assessment mechanisms. The paper argues that drift is likely to occur in all forms of education, although empirical evidence is usually difficult to access due to the confidential nature of assessment processes. In order to illustrate the conjectured concerns, a case study drawing on the published syllabi, examinations and marking schemes from the examinations of a professional accounting body is presented. Keywords: assessment; constructive alignment; learning objectives; marking processes