ABSTRACT
Education at any stage has important moral purposes and both the curriculum and administrative arrangements, such as residence, in higher education are often planned with the deliberate aim of promoting moral development in students. The standard way to measure student learning in most institutions is by means of formal assessments in traditional degree examinations or open-ended assignments such as dissertations. Such techniques may or may not be effective means of measuring cognitive development, but they are very indirect and probably inadequate for measuring the development of attitudes, character and values. Many psychologists have advanced stage theories of development in childhood and adolescence. In teaching, staff model the intellectual skills they wish students to acquire; equally, in the way they handle assessments they can help students understand the nature of the intellectual development they are expected to demonstrate. Assignments reflect students’ attempts to make meaning and assessment should be undertaken in an awareness of the significance of that achievement.
