‘Imagining Otherwise’ About Assessment w/Jan McArthur

How is the wrong question. It's always why. Why are you doing this? We have lost sight of the purpose of assessment. And I think the gradeless movement is helping us to rethink that.

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TG2 team member, Michelle Cottrell-Williams, interviews Jan McArthur, Senior Lecturer in Education and Social Justice in the Department of Educational Research, Lancaster University, UK. Jan’s research focuses on the nature and purposes of higher education and how these relate to practices of teaching, learning, and assessment. Jan McArthur coauthored the piece, A Womanist Approach to Care-Full Feedback, with Ameena L. Payne, which received an overwhelmingly positive reception.

Professor McArthur has a particular interest in critical theory and in her published work explores the ideas of Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Axel Honneth, applying these to higher education. Her book, Rethinking Knowledge in Higher Education, explores how Adorno’s critical theory can inform our understanding of, and engagement with, knowledge in higher education for the purposes of greater social justice. Her second book, Assessment for Social Justice, uses Honneth's conceptualization of mutual recognition to rethink the nature of assessment in higher education.