Making Assessments Work for Global Learners

You might not know it from reading the headlines, but in most Western countries total international student enrollment remains at an all-time high. Young people’s continued enthusiasm for crossing borders to pursue educational opportunity makes sense in an increasingly multipolar world. And it requires traditional pathways programs to update their approach to helping more international students make what can be a challenging transition. How do we best prepare these learners for academic success when they’re navigating not just new content, but entirely new systems of learning and assessment?

At Kaplan Pathways, we recognise that academic ability is just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to addressing the unique challenges international students face. They often arrive with strong foundational knowledge but find themselves struggling with unfamiliar assessment formats, classroom expectations, and teaching styles – all while managing the stress of being far from home.

That’s why we’re focused more than ever on helping students adapt to styles of assessment and learning that may be new to them - and at the same time recognizing the need to support their emotional well-being by creating a culture of care and inclusion.

Much of this work falls under the heading of what we call compassionate assessment. What exactly does this mean? Our approach focuses on maintaining high standards while offering international students clear guidance, flexibility, and support as they spend a year learning to navigate a very different learning environment. That means, for example, recognizing that a student who has never conducted a business pitch or delivered a digital content proposal or produced a vlog shouldn’t be penalized for unfamiliarity with the format when their grasp of the underlying concepts is solid.

We’ve learned that meeting the needs of students who are far from home and family, facing stresses that can lead to mental health challenges, requires both compassion and clear communication about how to meet a new set of classroom expectations.

Here’s how our technique helps develop crucial student skills:

• We start with building awareness. International students need to know that becoming proficient at communicating and tackling assessment challenges with confidence is vital in their new university setting. Even if their underlying knowledge is strong, they won’t be able to demonstrate it without becoming comfortable with what might be unfamiliar assessments and classroom practices.

• When they enter our Pathways programs, many students may never have written a formal report or given a presentation, let alone been assessed using more innovative formats like making a mock business pitch or designing a website. 

• We make expectations transparent, provide examples and clear rubrics, and coach students so they can confidently show what they know.

We’re already seeing evidence that the compassionate assessment approach has tangible benefits, including more timely submissions, a greater sense of autonomy, reduced stress, and better academic performance. We know this because we use what we call “action research” to measure how well the techniques we introduce are working.

For example, Kaplan instructors in the sciences created sample lab reports and annotated exams using the shorthand WAGOLLS - “What A Good One Looks Like.” The idea wasn’t to show perfect work, but to support students who were struggling to interpret unfamiliar assessment formats by making expectations very clear. By revealing misconceptions and prompting productive discussion, these concrete work examples led to stronger student performance. Students reported that the lab report WAGOLL was a useful template and that having a concrete example to refer to reduced uncertainty, helping them write more confidently and efficiently. Average scores went up nearly 8 percent for a cohort of physics students and 11 percent and 27 percent respectively for their peers in biology and chemistry.

Another small, compassionate adjustment has helped busy students manage their time more effectively. We asked staff in business, law, and social sciences to stop setting a specific deadline for assignments and instead offer a window of dates when this work could be submitted. The instructor’s actual internal deadline didn’t change, but by giving students more flexibility and control they could budget their time across multiple course modules and their life beyond college. Students shared that having a window made it easier to plan, as assessments were all due within weeks – sometimes days – of each other. Their anxiety levels went down - and late submissions actually dropped from 16 percent to just 3 percent.

Looking ahead, we’re determined to continue taking a holistic approach to international students’ success. This isn’t about quick fixes like participation trophies - it’s about substance. We plan to keep focusing on (and measuring results of) the practical skills that will help students earn degrees, while maintaining the relationships and life balance that will keep them engaged, happy, and on the road to productive futures.