Emma Medland

Dr Emma Medland

Senior Lecturer
PhD, SFHEA, PGCert, MSc, BSc
+44 (0)1483 683110
23 DK 03
Please contact me to arrange a meeting

Academic and research departments

Surrey Institute of Education.

About

Areas of specialism

Assessment and Feedback; Higher Education Pedagogy

University roles and responsibilities

  • Programme Director, MA in HE
  • Co-Director, Surrey Assessment and Learning Lab
  • Module Leader, Graduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching
  • Module Leader, MA in HE
  • Academic Lead, DHE Continuing Professional Development Workshops

    Previous roles

    2007 - 2013
    Lecturer in Higher Education
    King's Learning Institute, King's College London

    Affiliations and memberships

    Senior Fellow of Higher Education Academy (SFHEA)
    Awarded 2015

    Research

    Research interests

    Research projects

    Research collaborations

    Indicators of esteem

    • External Examiner: Postgraduate Certificate in Higher and Professional Education; Academic Professional Apprenticeship Route; Portfolio Route to HEA Fellowship, Staffordshire University [2020-2024]

    • External Examiner, University College London, BSc Education Studies (2017 - present)

    • Founding member, HEA's (now Advance HE) Assessment and Feedback Community of Practice

    • Review Editor of the Editorial Board of Assessment, Testing and Applied Measurement, a speciality of Frontiers Education

    • Winner: SEDA Educational Development Initiative of the Year 2018

    • Member of Society for Research into Higher Education’s (SRHE): Publication Committee [2019-2021]

    • Finalist: Guardian University Awards 2018 (Teaching Excellence); e-Assessment Awards 2018 (Best Transformational Project) for the FEATS project [March 2018]

    • Co-convenor, international symposium, Academic Integrity and Contract Cheating’ [24th June 2019]

    • Co-Director, Surrey Assessment and Learning Lab, 2018-present

    Supervision

    Postgraduate research supervision

    Postgraduate research supervision

    Teaching

    Publications

    Medland, E. (2019) ‘Excited’ yet ‘Paralysing’: The highs and lows of the feedback process. Educational Developments (in press).
    Okupe, A., & Medland, E. (2019) Pluralising student voices: Evaluating teaching practice (forthcoming). In N. Winstone, I.M. Kinchin, S. Lygo-Baker & S. Warburton’s (eds.) Engaging Student Voices in Higher Education: Diverse Perspectives and Expectations in Partnership. London: Palgrave.
    Medland, E. (2018) "“I’m an assessment illiterate”: Towards a shared discourse of assessment literacy for external examiners, Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education: https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2018.1523363
    Medland, E. (2018) Academic Development. In I.M. Kinchin & N.Winstone’s (eds.) Frailty and Resilience Narratives. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers (pp.169-185).
    Heron, M., Kinchin, I.M., & Medland, E. (2018) Interview talk and the co-construction of concept maps, Educational Research, 60(4), 373-389
    Medland, E., Watermeyer, R., Hosein, A. and Kinchin, I.M. (eds) (2018) Pedagogical Peculiarities: Conversations at the Edge of University Teaching and Learning. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
    Medland, E., James, A., & Bailey, N. (2018) “Messy and Precise”: Peculiarities and parallels between the Performing Arts and Higher Education. In E. Medland, R. et al. (eds.) Pedagogical Peculiarities. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers (pp33-48).
    Kinchin, I.M., Heron, M., Hosein, A., Lygo-Baker, S., Medland, E., Morley, D., & Winstone, N. (2018) Researcher-led academic development, the International Journal of Academic Development, 23(4), 339-354.
    Kinchin, I.M., Hosein, A., Medland, E., Lygo-Baker, S., Warburton, S., Gash, D., Rees, R., Loughlin, C., Woods, R., Price, S. and Usherwood, S. (2017) Mapping the development of a new MA programme in higher education: Comparing private perceptions of a public endeavour. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 41(2), 155-171.
    Medland, E. (2016) Assessment in higher education: drivers, barriers and directions for change in the UK. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 41(1): 81 – 96.
    Medland, E. (2015) Examining the Assessment Literacy of External Examiners. London Review of Education, 13(3), 21-33.
    Medland, E. (2012) Assessment in Curriculum Change. In: P. Blackmore and C. Kandiko’s Strategic Curriculum Change. London: Routledge (pp. 92-108).
    Medland, E. (2010) Subjectivity as a Tool for Clarifying Mismatches between Markers. The International Journal of Learning, 17(7), 399-412.
    Lygo-Baker, S., Hay, D., & Kingston, E. (2008) Uncovering the Diversity of Teachers’ Understanding of their Role: the importance of individual values, The International Journal of Learning, 15(5), 245-254.
    Kingston, E. (2008) Emotional Competence and Dropout Rates in Higher Education, Education and Training, 50(2), 128-139.
    Kingston, E., & Forland, H. (2008) Bridging the Gap in Expectations between International Students and Academic Staff, Journal of Studies in International Education, 12(2), 204-221.
    Winstone, N., Papps, E., Rees, R., Medland, E., Niculescu, I., Law, J., Nagpal, S., & Garncarek, A. (2018) JISC Change Agent Network Conference, 19th-20th April, University of Winchester, UK.
    Student satisfaction with assessment and feedback is the sector’s "Achilles’ Heel" (Knight, 2002, p.107). Students commonly report that the feedback they receive is not useful, often because it is not clear how to enact the advice, and how to synthesise comments across modules. Through a HEFCE-funded project, we engaged with students’ perspectives on the utility of feedback in order to inform the design of a feedback portfolio within our VLE, which supports students to synthesise and act upon their feedback. This portfolio was developed in partnership with students using co-design methodology (Iivari, 2004). In this workshop, we will invite delegates to participate in an interactive exploration of the co-design method, tracing the journey from the initial design workshops to the finished portfolio. In the first co-design workshops, students used creative media such as playdoh and post-it notes to represent their experience of receiving feedback. Having introduced them to the concept of learning analytics, we then asked them, both individually and in groups, to design their ideal feedback portfolio. We will invite delegates to explore artefacts from the design sessions, and to consider what is being voiced by the students through these artefacts. Student interns will be co-facilitators of the workshop, sharing their perspectives on the student voice.  We will then demonstrate how students’ perspectives are directly reflected in the design of the portfolio. Our evaluation of the process demonstrates that students felt ownership of the tool, and recognised that staff had listened to their views on feedback and taken them on board. We aim to give delegates insight into co-design methods as a way of engaging with the student voice to close the feedback loop. We will share ways in which we are currently using the method to develop a range of digital tools in partnership with students.
    Rienties, B., Willis, A., Alcott, P., & Medland, E. (2013) Student Experiences of Self-Reflection and Peer Assessment in Providing Authentic Project Based Learning to large Class-Sizes. In P. Van den Bossche, W.H. Gijselaers & R.G. Milter (Eds.). Advances in Business Education and Training (Vol. 5). Netherlands: Springer.
    Medland, E. (2018) “I’m an assessment illiterate”: Towards a shared discourse of assessment literacy for external examiners, EARLI SIG 1 Conference, 29th-31st August, Helsinki, Finland.
    The quality assurance ‘regime’ that spans the higher education (HE) sector internationally is underpinned by a number of unchallenged assumptions. Nowhere is this more apparent than within the external examining system - an instrument for the professional self-regulation of HE in which an impartial peer reviewer who is external to the host institution provides quality assurance in relation to an identified programme / qualification. One of these unchallenged assumptions is that external examiners are assessment literate. Within HE, assessment literacy is a concept in its infancy, but one that arguably has the capacity to reverse the deterioration of confidence in academic standards. Whilst the concept is becoming integrated into the sectorial vernacular, its fluid and negotiated nature is under-conceptualised. The primary aim of this session is to outline a research project that investigated the extent of external examiners’ assessment literacy and to use this as a base to initiate a discussion surrounding the development of a shared discourse of assessment literacy, thereby providing a tool for greater conceptualisation of the concept.
    Winstone, N., & Medland, E. (2018) Feedback Footprints: Using Learning Analytics to support student engagement with, and learning from, feedback, Assessment in Higher Education Biannual Conference, 28th June, Manchester, UK.

    Medland, E. (2018) "I’m an assessment illiterate”: Towards a shared discourse of assessment literacy for external examiners, Researching Assessment Practice: Improving student outcomes conference, 13th September, University of Southampton, Southampton.
    The primary aim of this session is to outline a research project that investigated the extent of external examiners’ assessment literacy and to use this as a base to initiate a discussion surrounding the development of a shared discourse of assessment literacy.
    Evans, C., Mayhew, E., Medland, E., O’Leary, C., Riley, S., Rutherford, S., Waring, M., Wilde, A., & Winstone, N. (2018) Assessment and feedback priorities: Presentation and Discussion facilitated by the Interdisciplinary Network for Research-Informed Assessment Practices (Advance HE & Southampton), Researching Assessment Practice: Improving student outcomes conference, 13th September, University of Southampton, Southampton.
    Winstone, N., Medland, E. (2018) The Feedback Engagement and Tracking System (FEATS), SEDA 23rd Annual Conference, 15th-16th November, Birmingham, UK.
    Medland, E. (2017) “I’m an assessment illiterate”: Investigating the assessment literacy of external
    examiners. Paper presented at the Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE) Annual Conference, 6th-8th December, Newport, Wales.
    Heron, M., Hosein, A. Kinchin, I.M., Medland, E., & Winstone, N. (2017) Researcher-led academic development. Paper presented at the annual conference of the Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE), 6th - 8th December, Celtic Manor, Wales.
    Medland, E. (2017) Examining the Examiner: Investigating the assessment literacy of external
    examiners. International Assessment in Higher Education Conference, 28th-29th June, Manchester.
    Medland, E. (2017) Supporting the Development of External Examiners’ Assessment Literacy. Paper presented at the Excellence in Teaching Symposium (Surrey ExciTeS), 4th January, University of Surrey, Surrey.
    Gravett, K., Kinchin, I.M., Winstone, N.E., Heron, M., Lygo-Baker, S., Medland, E., & Balloo, K. (2020) Feedback literacy, learning and identity in academic developers’ experiences of rejection via scholarly peer review. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 45(5), 651-665.
    Winstone, N.E., Bourne, J., Medland, E., Rees, R., & Niculsecu, I. (2021) “Check the grade, log out”: Students’ engagement with feedback in Virtual Learning Environments. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 46 (4), 631-643.
    Kinchin, I., Winstone, N., & Medland, E. (2021) Considering the concept of recipience in student learning from a modified Bernsteinian perspective. Studies in Higher Education, 46 (11), 2296-2308.
    Jephcote, C., Medland, E., & Lygo-Baker, S. (2021) Grade inflation versus grade improvement: Are our students getting more intelligent?’ Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 46 (4), 547-571.
    Heron, M., Medland, E., Winstone, N., & Pitt, E. (2021) Developing a heuristic to examine feedback talk in higher education seminars. Feedback Literacy Symposium: From educational research to professional practice, 12th-13th January, University of Surrey, UK.
    Heron, M., Medland, E., Winstone, N., & Pitt, E. (2021) Developing the relational in teacher feedback literacy: Exploring feedback talk (Accepted). Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education (online): https:///doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2021.1932735
    Medland, E., Heron, M., & Balloo, K. (2021) Precedents to feedback literacy: Uncoupling feedback from assessment using an evidence-based approach to reflect on and validate the Feedback Talk Framework, 6th-10th December 2021, SRHE Conference 2021, (Re)connecting, (Re)building: Higher Education in Transformative Times.