Perspectives on Learning Assessment in the Arts in Higher Education: Supporting Transparent Assessment across Artistic Disciplines
Diane LeDuc and Sébastien Béland, editors.
Routledge
ISBN: 9781003198307 (ebook)
327 pages
Review author: Eva Göksel
(How) can learning in the arts be fairly and effectively assessed in higher education? This book tackles this question honestly and discerningly by considering the theoretical and empirical insights gleaned from teachers and practitioners working with the arts in higher education across Canada and Europe. In doing so, Perspectives on Learning Assessment in the Arts in Higher Education addresses one of the most persistent and complex dilemmas in arts education: how to reconcile the inherently subjective, process-oriented, and often transformative nature of artistic learning with rigid institutional demands for fairness, accountability, and transparency in assessment. Honest questions about how to shape, mentor and test students in this field without breaking their spirit, while preparing them for the life of an artist, provoke thought and call for courage to adapt assessment and training based on what the students need for life after graduation.
The collection includes a deep dive into a rich variety of assessment practices across the field of fine arts, including in visual arts, fashion, design, performing arts, dance and music. The examples refreshingly illustrate a range of approaches to fair assessment of student knowledge, competencies, skills, and progress. Rather than proposing a single model or solution, the chapters offer a glimpse into situated practices that emerge from specific disciplinary, cultural, and institutional contexts. It is worth noting that no author claims to have found ‘the’ solution, but rather they each share what might and what will likely not work in their individual settings. This approach is one of the book’s strengths, as it resists reductive approaches to assessment while engaging critically with the need for shared criteria and communicable standards. The writing overall is clear and engaging, making this read both instructive and enjoyable.
Many of the authors consider the contextual challenges of assessment in depth, in particular the challenges of subjectivity, authorship, competition, and transparency. Some chapters address the tension between assessment as a pedagogical tool that supports learning and assessment as a gatekeeping mechanism within highly competitive arts programmes. These tensions are especially pronounced in contexts where assessment begins before formal enrolment, through auditions, portfolios, and competitive selection processes, and continues throughout students’ educational trajectories. The book repeatedly returns to the pivotal question of how assessment practices shape students’ identities as artists, influencing not only what is valued, but how students come to understand themselves, their work, and what should be considered as art.
With chapters authored by a wide range of experts, each with their own unique insights and individual flair, this book should appeal to academics and to teachers: particularly those working in higher education and those working with creativity and assessment in the arts. It will be particularly relevant to those grappling with institutional pressures to demonstrate fairness and rigour, while wishing to preserve the openness, risk-taking, and experimentation that are central to artistic practice.
The book is divided into four parts. Part One begins with a focus on fundamental perspectives, which includes some of the big challenges when working both with the arts and with assessment: subjectivity and intentionality. This includes a sustained consideration of the ethics of assessment. The authors begin by reflecting on how the arts help us to make sense of our world by allowing us to think through, and to attach meaning to, symbols. They reason that this enables us to experience and to qualify beauty. In turn, this appreciation for beauty becomes an important factor in our production and consumption of art and of the arts: it becomes a construction that establishes the very criteria for appreciating art. Those teaching, and thus assessing, learning in and of the arts must therefore grapple with how such criteria are formed, communicated, taught, evaluated and justified.
Chapters in this section address key topics such as the uneasy yet unavoidable process of ‘objectifying subjectivity’, asking how evaluative judgments can be articulated without denying the personal, affective, and contextual dimensions of artistic work. The ethics of assessment in the arts and the topic of authorship are also front and centre, highlighting the difficulties of attributing ownership and originality within collaborative, iterative, and pedagogically guided artistic processes. These chapters raise important ethical questions about power, responsibility, and voice in assessment, positioning this process not as a neutral act but as a deeply relational and value-laden practice.
Part Two considers assessment from the perspective of the student experience, tracing trajectories from the initial audition through to graduation. The chapters include a focus on art and design as well as on music (applying for high stakes international competitions, aka professional training programmes and assessment of instrumental learning). In this section, assessment is shown to be cumulative and thereby it should be considered to be formative of students’ professional identities, particularly as competition is embedded in both their educational and professional cultures. By comparing practices across different national contexts in Europe and Canada, the chapters illuminate how assessment criteria are shaped by cultural traditions and institutional histories. The discussion of revising assessment criteria in art and design programmes in the UK is especially insightful, demonstrating how changes in assessment frameworks can lead to more inclusive and equitable outcomes without affecting quality.
Part Three frames assessment as both a source of anxiety and as a potential opportunity. With evocative titles such as ‘Between the Fear and the Wow!’, these chapters examine emotional responses to assessment in the arts, acknowledging the vulnerability inherent in presenting creative work for judgment. At the same time, assessment is reimagined as a space for recognition, affirmation, personal and professional growth and creative dialogue. Chapters on creativity and the so-called ‘wow factor’ interrogate what is being rewarded in assessment practices and question whether moments of impact or brilliance can, or should, be formalised within criteria-based systems.
Part Four shifts towards applied perspectives, offering concrete examples of how assessment is enacted in visual arts, dance, and performing arts programmes in Europe and Québec. These chapters foreground competencies and practices, with particular attention to portfolios as assessment tools and to the use of juries and collective evaluation processes. Teacher voices feature prominently, providing valuable insight into how assessment decisions are negotiated in practice and how educators attempt to balance consistency with responsiveness to individual student achievement. Creativity, authenticity, autonomy, risk-taking, open-mindedness, self-assessment, inspiration and innovation are seen as being highly valued by teachers and assessors in the arts in higher education, although these criteria are sometimes at odds with institutional rubrics or guidelines. Many mentors struggle with the need to assess (and show appreciation for) creativity and those intangible ‘wow moments’, raising the question of whether there is a way to assess the unassessable?
One of the book’s key contributions lies in its sustained emphasis on transparency. Across disciplines and contexts, the contributors argue that making assessment criteria explicit does not necessarily constrain creativity; rather, it can empower both students and assessors by clarifying expectations and supporting reflective engagement with and through their own learning. Transparency is thus positioned not merely as an administrative requirement, but as a pedagogical and ethical commitment that encourages learning and positive growth.
If there is a limitation to the volume, it may be the lack of specific coverage of training and assessment practices in theatre and drama: there is only a short reference to assessment at the National Theatre School of Canada. Instead, the collected chapters focus primarily on practices in music, the visual arts, and dance. In addition, the references drawn on throughout the volume largely predate 2015 (with the exception of one chapter), with some of the empirical studies cited having been conducted in 2010–2011, situating the book within an important but now well-established phase of research on assessment in the arts. This temporal framing also points productively towards the need for further scholarship that engages with more recent developments in artistic practice, digital technologies, and evolving assessment cultures in higher education. Nevertheless, many of the conceptual discussions and practical strategies presented are readily transferable to drama and performance-based programmes, particularly those concerned with creativity, subjectivity, self-assessment, and process-oriented work.
Overall, Perspectives on Learning Assessment in the Arts in Higher Education offers a thoughtful, nuanced, and much-needed contribution to debates about assessment in artistic disciplines. By refusing simplistic solutions and embracing complexity, the book provides both critical insight and practical inspiration, grounded in current research and practice. While the chapters in this book can be read in any order, beginning with Part One sets a helpful theoretical frame for the ensuing contributions. This book should be of particular value to educators and artists seeking to develop assessment practices that are fair, transparent, and supportive of artistic growth, while remaining sensitive to the subjective, creative and often transformative dimensions of learning in the arts.
