Unravelling an assessment puzzle: reflections on reconciling effective assessment and workload management in South African higher education

Abstract Assessment in higher education is a complex path to navigate, with unexpected twists and turns. Although many studies project the positive outcomes of assessment for learning, the outcomes do not always match the intention. Even when formative assessment is well-planned, the implementation may take such a toll, leaving a lecturer physically drained. A big puzzle with assessment in higher education is how to design formative assessment tasks that promote deep learning for students but do not increase staff workload. In this article, I explore this puzzle in relation to my teaching of a second-year module in an English course that is part of the Bachelor of Education programme at my university. I look at how the specific context of my teaching in 2021 influenced my formative assessment design and reflect critically on the affordances and constraints of the design in relation to existing conceptualisations of assessment in higher education. Lastly, I propose some possibilities for resolving the assessment puzzle and highlight the implications of these possibilities for the reconceptualisation of assessment in higher education.