Process-based evaluation strategies: desirable difficulties, think-aloud protocols, annotated drafts, and iterative revision logs that render reasoning legible¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

Drawing on Bjork and Bjork, the article advocates "desirable difficulties, such as in-class, resource-restricted problem solving", making the path to the answer as important as the answer so cognitive labor occurs. Practical instantiations include think-aloud protocols, annotated drafts, and iterative revision logs, which render reasoning visible to evaluators and yield richer formative data for early intervention. The authors report pilot programs at several institutions showed more accurate representations of understanding and higher student satisfaction with fairness.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Investment in faculty development, assessment infrastructure, and institutional cultures that reward pedagogical innovation over administrative convenience

Constraints¶

• The authors acknowledge such methods are more resource-intensive than single-submission grading

Target Learners¶

• higher education students

Target Learning Goals¶

• demonstrable cognitive labor and reasoning process
• accurate representation of student understanding

Related Strategies¶

• Critique And Revision
• Critique Protocol

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Md Zarzees Uddin Shah Chowdhury and Samin Rahman Khan. (2026). Evaluation in the Age of AI: Output as Evidence of Learning. https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.22660