Professionalism in assessing students’performance: Roles and responsibilities of higher education teachers

Assessment is an integral part of a course curriculum. It is imperative because it helps students know their strengths and weaknesses of course contents and gives them the opportunity to overcome their weaknesses. Further, it guides course teachers-cum-assessors to evaluate their performance about the course. With this background, this chapter critically examines criterion-referenced and norm-referenced assessment, and the advantages of providing feedback on students’ performance. It discusses how higher education teachers are expected to assess students’ performance professionally, and what role they play to ascertain students’ learning on course contents. Finally, the chapter highlights the challenges Higher Education (HE) teachers encounter while assessing students’ performance.