Getting carried away with learning? Assessment for Learning and the ‘learnification’ of education

For a number of years, Assessment for Learning (AfL) – the idea that assessment and feedback processes should be primarily seen as opportunities for learning – has dominated discussions of assessment and feedback in higher education.

AfL’s focus on learning is part of a wider trend. Relatively recently, this contemporary focus on learning has been subject to critique by Gert Biesta, who describes a process of ‘learnification’ with negative consequences such as the promotion of individualist and consumerist ideas.

This paper explores the extent to which Biesta’s critique of ‘learnification’ applies to the idea of AfL. While Biesta’s ideas have prompted considerable recent discussion, there has been only tangential discussion of how they might apply to AfL. Does AfL constitute a positive trend taken too far, or does it illustrate a way in which a contemporary focus on learning can preserve questions of meaning, community and a broader conception of (higher) education?