Take5 #125 From Dead End Assessments to Sustainable Pathways for Student Success

Introduction: It’s the process not the product!

In Higher Education, assessments can be more than measures of performance; they are powerful tools for shaping learning, fostering growth, and preparing students for the complexities of their professional and personal lives. Yet, many assessments are just a snapshot of a student’s knowledge and ability at a single point in time, offering little opportunity for skill development or meaningful learning beyond the classroom. I call these “dead-end” assessments.

Dead-end assessments tend to be disconnected from broader academic goals of the programme and don’t contribute to the long-term motivation and development of the learner. Instead, they mark the conclusion of a learning episode, offering nothing to improve the future performance of the student other than a grade and its justification: assessment of learning perhaps – but definitely not assessment as learning!.

By contrast, sustainable assessments (Boud, D., 2000; Boud, D., & Soler, R. 2015) develop skills and knowledge that transcend individual assignments to foster lifelong learning. Every sustainable assessment is not just a measure of what students know but a building block that elevates their learning in the upward path they will need to climb in their future academic, professional, and personal lives.

I’ve come to the conclusion that dead-end assessments are a wasted opportunity for students and educators and should be adapted or eliminated from our educational programmes. Assessment practices should be overhauled so that every assessment contributes meaningfully to a students’ learning and assessment journey culminating in the capstone assessment in their final year (often but not always a thesis) and develops their lifelong learning. In the sections that follow, you’ll learn actionable approaches and innovative practices that turn assessment into a continuous, enriching learning experience.

The Problem with Dead-End Assessments

Dead-end assessments are often familiar to staff and students, cheap and easy to administer, but they fail to extend learning or prepare students for future challenges. Their shortcomings include:

• Narrow Focus: Tasks like rote memorisation tests or generic essays capture a momentary snapshot of knowledge but fail to foster critical thinking, problem-solving, or transferable skills.
• Limited Feedback: Often providing only scores, correct answers or a perfunctory justification, they offer little actionable guidance for improvement or future application.
• Lack of Continuity: Assessments that operate in isolation miss opportunities to build a cohesive and cumulative learning journey across modules or programmes.
• Disengagement: Without clear connections to knowledge application or career goals, these motivate students only inasmuch as they’re interested in their grades.

Dead-end assessments offer a narrow, disjointed snapshot of learning, leaving students without clear guidance for future improvement. So, what’s the alternative? By integrating feedforward between all assessments, we can transform each evaluation into a stepping stone for continuous growth. 

The Principles of Sustainable Assessment

Sustainable assessments are the antithesis of dead-end assessment and are built on principles that demand more from both educators and students:

• Transferability: The skills and knowledge developed should be applicable beyond the classroom and the immediate assessment.
• Authenticity: Assessments reflect challenges that require application of rather than replication of knowledge, ensuring relevance and practical value.
• Feedback: Detailed, actionable comments should guide improvement and refinement.
• Reflection: Students engage in self-evaluation to deepen their understanding and future growth.

Thought of in a programme-wide sense, these principles demand that every assessment adds value to the student’s academic and professional journey. With the time of the students and academics at a premium there’s no room for the wasted opportunity cost of assessments that don’t develop skills or knowledge which are further built upon. Each assessment in a programme of study should be a stepping stone to a higher achievement in a subsequent assessment or to the development of lifelong learning skills they will apply in their post-graduate life.

Building an Ascending Pathway of Learning and Assessment

Seen this way undergraduate programmes should function as an ascending pathway of interconnected assessments opportunities within and between years. Each assessment is a step up in the pathway, fostering greater skills proficiency, deeper knowledge and understanding, and higher levels of accomplishment. Sustainable assessments are the key to this approach, providing continuity and cumulative value throughout the educational journey. Clear sign-posting of this progression ensures students see connections between their learning experiences between assessments in and between years to develop a sense of purpose and mastery they take from their studies into society.

Dead-end assessments disrupt this flow, don’t connect to prior or future learning, breaking the upward and onward growth of learning. By prioritising sustainable assessments and adapting or eliminating dead-end tasks, educators can ensure programs maintain the building of learning in a cohesive framework that supports both academic and personal growth, equipping students for success in a complex and changing world.

Refining the Assessment Landscape

I know that most undergraduate programs are thoughtfully designed with an overarching framework that minimises dead-end assessments. However, over time, such assessments creep in through evolving curricula, shifting priorities, or practical constraints. They often emerge as new assessments without alignment to wider programme goals: a standalone assignment might meet the immediate learning objectives of a module but not connect to the rest of the programme. Similarly, students may complete assessments in isolation, viewing them as hurdles to overcome rather than steps in a cumulative learning journey. In my experience both students and staff don’t always recognize the connections between assessments across modules or years, leaving the programme’s cohesive design underutilized or misunderstood.

Redesigning the assessment landscape requires a strategic and programme level approach to embed sustainable principles across entire undergraduate curricula. Collaboration is critical in this, with colleagues all needing to work together to ensure all assessments align with program-level goals and build progressively towards the students graduation and subsequent life. The process begins with an audit of existing assessments to identify tasks that do build in subsequent assessments. These dead-end assessments can be reimagined to incorporate elements that build skills, integrate knowledge, and offer practical value in the future.

To refine the assessment landscape and ensure the intended connections are visible and impactful:

• Audit the Curriculum Regularly: Program leaders should periodically review assessments to identify and address any tasks that lack alignment with future learning and assessment or professional skills.
• Make Connections Explicit: Staff can help students see the links between tasks by embedding references to prior and future assessments in assignment briefs, feedback, and discussions.
• Encourage Collaboration Across Modules: Faculty teams should work together to design assessments that complement one another, creating a clear progression of skills and knowledge across modules and years.
• Highlight Cumulative Value: Incorporate reflective exercises where students analyse how past assessments have prepared them for current tasks and how the current tasks will inform future challenges.

By proactively addressing these challenges, programs can ensure that assessments remain interconnected and purposeful, reinforcing a cohesive learning journey. When staff and students clearly see how each assessment task contributes to their long-term development, assessments become more than evaluative tools, a grade to be desired and discarded—they become a foundation for growth, engagement, and success.

Most dead-end assessments can be adapted to become sustainable with simple modifications. 

For instance:

• Integrate Reflection: An essay could include a reflective component asking students to connect their work to broader program objectives or future applications.
• Build Continuity: A multiple-choice quiz could incorporate follow-up tasks requiring students to apply the knowledge in practical or collaborative settings.
• Enhanced Feedback: Instead of providing only scores, detailed feedback should highlight strengths, areas for improvement, and how the skills assessed are relevant to subsequent tasks.
• Focus on Transferability: Tasks like memorization exercises could be redesigned to emphasize critical thinking or problem-solving, linking knowledge to real-world scenarios.

By making small but significant adjustments, we can transform dead-end assessments into meaningful opportunities for growth. This ensures that every task contributes to the ascending learning journey, creating a cohesive framework that equips students for success in both academic and professional contexts.  

Building Toward the Final-Year Capstone Assessment

The capstone assessment completed by undergraduates in their final-year, whether it’s a research project, design task, or professional practice project, is the culmination of their learning journey. In it they demonstrate the skills, knowledge, and competencies acquired throughout their studies. All or most of the assessments throughout the programme should build toward this final challenge and ensuring all assessments are sustainable is key to this process. By designing assessments that are interconnected and progressive, educators create a learning milieu that supports students every step of the way.

While students may not undertake anything quite like the work in their capstone assessments in their post-graduation careers, the skills developed during this process are applicable and crucial for their success in the modern world. The ability to think critically, solve complex problems, communicate effectively, and manage projects is transferable to virtually every graduate career. Whether working in research, business, healthcare, or the arts, students will rely on the same competencies displayed in their capstone projects, skills essential for academic success and also to thrive in any professional setting.

By aligning and signposting each assessment in a program with the ultimate goal of the capstone assessment, students see the relevance of their work beyond the immediate grade, recognise the long-term importance of their academic performance and are prepared for challenges beyond university. Ultimately, when sustainable assessments build intentionally toward the final capstone project, students are equipped with the skills, knowledge, and confidence to excel in their studies and throughout their post-graduation lives.

Recommendations

1. Adopt an Ascending Pathway Model:

• Design undergraduate programs as a continuous, interconnected series of assessments.
• Ensure each assessment builds on the previous ones, fostering cumulative growth in skills and knowledge.

2. Replace Dead-End Assessments:

• Identify and eliminate or adapt assessments that offer only a snapshot of learning with limited feedback or feedforward.
• Transform these tasks to contribute to long-term development rather than serving as isolated hurdles.

3. Make Connections Explicit:

• Embed clear references to prior and future assessments in assignment briefs, feedback, and discussions.
• Help students see the cumulative value of their learning journey, reinforcing a sense of purpose and mastery.

4. Integrate Reflective Practice and Enhanced Feedback:

• Incorporate reflective exercises that prompt students to analyse how past assessments prepare them for current and future challenges.
• Provide detailed, actionable feedback that emphasises feedforward, guiding students on how to improve in subsequent tasks.

5. Regularly Audit the Curriculum:

• Conduct periodic reviews of assessment practices to ensure alignment with overarching program goals.
• Address any assessments that lack continuity or fail to build toward future learning outcomes.

6. Encourage Collaboration:

• Foster collaboration among faculty across modules to design complementary assessments.
• Build a cohesive progression of skills and knowledge that spans the entire program.

7. Align with the Capstone Goal:

Ensure every assessment contributes to the skills, knowledge, and competencies required for the final-year capstone project.

Signpost the long-term relevance of each task, preparing students for both academic success and professional challenges.

References

Boud, D. (2000). Sustainable Assessment: Rethinking assessment for the learning society. Studies in Continuing Education, 22(2), 151–167. https://doi.org/10.1080/713695728

Boud, D., & Soler, R. (2015). Sustainable assessment revisited. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 41(3), 400–413. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2015.1018133

Profile

Professor David Tree is Vice Dean for Education at the College of Health, Medicine, and Life Sciences at Brunel University. With 20 years of experience in higher education, he is a nationally recognized leader in pedagogy, curriculum development, and assessment innovation. His contributions to education have been acknowledged with the Biochemical Society’s Educator of the Year award (2024) and a Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence (CATE) for his pioneering work on Integrated Programme Assessment (IPA). He has co-founded a network of HE colleagues interested in IPA pedagogy funded by the QAA (link). 

David has played a key role in shaping educational strategy at Brunel, leading programme development across multiple disciplines, championing inclusive curricula, and enhancing student success through evidence-based teaching practices. He co-leads the Royal Society of Biology Biosciences Educators Network, mentors colleagues through promotions and HEA fellowships, and has led institution-wide initiatives on authentic assessment and interprofessional learning..