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Programme-focused Approaches to Strengthening Academic Integrity

The majority of our students at Trinity are enrolled in programmes of study. Taking a programme level approach to assessment and curriculum design is crucial if we are to gain an insight into our programme aims, our students’ experience of teaching, learning and assessment across their programme and our students’ acquisition of programme learning outcomes and graduate attributes.  

Fostering a culture of honesty, transparency, accountability and ethical behaviour consistently across a programme can play a key role in helping students develop their understanding of academic integrity.  

This section supports you to:  

• consider and review assessment design from a programme-level perspective;
• identify and implement strategies to strengthen academic integrity across a programme of study.

Only got a minute? Jump straight to the Takeaways.

Why take a programmatic approach to assessment and teaching?

Taking a programmatic approach to assessment and curriculum design is generally recognised as key to ensuring that students acquire programme learning outcomes and graduate attributes. A programmatic approach views the programme as a structured and connected process, enabling coherence and connection of assessments and learning experiences across a programme. This requires a shift in academics’ perspectives - from a modular view focused on teaching and module assessments, to a programme view which is focused on the lived experience of the student.  

The development of a full range of graduate attributes requires a systematic approach to assessment that builds and enhances those attributes through tasks that are diverse, complementary to each other and embedded strategically throughout a program of study.

(Boud et al, 2010)

In this video Professor Lambert Schuwirth, (Flinders University) explores how programmatic assessment addresses some of the major concerns with traditional assessments.

Strategies for strengthening academic integrity across a programme

Review programme handbooks to ensure clarity and consistency of message. 

Ensure that expectations around academic conduct, and how students might avoid breaches of academic integrity, are clearly and consistently articulated and communicated. 

• See Trinity's Programme Handbook Policy.

Map assessment loads across the programme to reduce bottlenecks and avoid overassessment. 

Mapping assessments across a programme reduces the likelihood of overassessment by enabling programme teams to get a full picture of the students’ assessment load across modules. This can reduce the likelihood of cheating due to high workload and associated anxiety.  

• For an example, see UCD's Institutional Approach to Programme Mapping 

Map assessment types across the programme to ensure coherency, reliability, validity and assessment security. 

Use a programmatic approach to plan for a range of assessment types across a programme ensuring that acquisition of module and programme learning outcomes is evidenced.  

Avoid using a single assessment type to evidence the acquisition of a learning outcome: instead, consider how this learning might be evidenced through a variety (e.g. interactive oral assessment, supervised online exams, practicum reports, logs and time-stamps of draft materials). Consider focusing on ‘sequences’ of tasks in and/or across modules that demonstrate the achievement of programme-level outcomes. 

Taking such an approach also reduces the assessment security risk of overrelying on a narrow range of tasks. 

• For ideas on how to assess in different ways, including the pros and cons of each, see this Academic Practice resource on Types of Assessment.

Deploy resources to prioritise assessment security where it matters most.  

One key function of assessment is to certify learning. In practice, this means programmatic assessment will likely involve fewer, but more carefully planned and protected, instances of summative/ high-stakes assessment. Taking a programmatic approach also enables staff to prioritise assessment security for these key summative assessments which are used to certify students’ acquisition of learning outcomes.  

Develop communication mechanisms to support the sharing of academic misconduct concerns and gathering of related evidence across a programme team.  

As part of these communication mechanisms, programmes teams should also be given clear guidance on how potential breaches should be escalated via College policy and processes.  

Use formative assessment and feedback practices to develop students’ understandings of academic integrity across the programme. 

Feedback has a key role to play in student learning, particularly feedback that is forward-facing and achievable. Feedback on formative, low-stakes assessments should feature iteratively in a programme and from the early stages of the programme onwards. A coherent programme-level approach to feedback can enable students to fully develop their understandings of academic integrity and associated ethical, honest behaviours. 

This can be achieved by requiring students to identify markers of quality in exemplar materials; critiquing artificial intelligence generated materials; engaging in assessment co-design; engaging in a standards-based approach to assessment through rubrics; and engaging in formative rounds of peer review.  Encourage students to reflect on their mistakes, evaluate their peer’s mistakes, and consider what they will do differently next time. As highlighted by Metcalfe (2017), errors followed by corrective/discursive feedback can impact positively on learning. This also applies to the development of student understandings of academic integrity.