ABSTRACT
One of the main barriers to innovation in assessment will be academic staff. Some will not see the need; some will be wary of the purposes and implications of change; while others will simply lack the technical knowledge to move from the rhetoric which they accept to the reality which needs to follow. ‘Managing academics is like herding cats’, it is said. There is, then, a substantial, hope-filled, staff development job to be done. Realistically, though, we need to keep in mind Fullan’s injunction, ‘do not expect all or even most people or groups to change’ (1991, p.106). This does not mean that it is idle to look for institution-wide reform, but it does mean that it takes years for new ways to become entrenched, and even then there will be colleagues who conform outwardly only and not at all if they can. Remember that in education ‘people have always exercised the right not to implement priorities selected by external authorities’ (Fullan, 1991, p.348). To repeat a point: wherever promotion rests on research records alone, and if teaching is conceived of only as performance in front of students, forgetting the significance of curriculum design, then it is not surprising if tutors tend not to accept the priorities which university management claims to have identified.
