Assessing the Personal: Inclusion, Anecdote, and Academic Writing - Personal Experience in Academic Assessment

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by awa

Paper examines how oral evidence—personal experience, anecdote, and oral history—can be treated within academic writing and culturally inclusive teaching. It frames three guiding questions: how to regard oral/personal evidence, how to assess academic arguments using such evidence, and what cultural inclusion means in teaching practices. Drawing on social constructivist learning and thinkers like Dewey, Piaget, and Schön, it challenges academic distrust of oral sources while addressing implications for minority and Indigenous students.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages8

Reading Time20 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

'Academic' Writing?

Written vs. oral knowledge in universities

Dilemmas for Indigenous students

Evidence as constructed knowledge

Personal histories and meaning making

Reflection, fragments of experience

Position, relationship, and memory

Critique and neglect of oral sources

7 Assessing the Personal: Inclusion, Anecdote, and Academic Writing Linda Westphalen University of Adelaide In the School of Education at the University of Adelaide, the use of oral evidence is increasingly common as students engage with reflective practices now dominant in teacher-education programs. These experiences offer both a dynamic perspective and a challenge to academic assessors and raise three questions, each of which are addressed in this paper: How should one regard oral history or personal experience in an academic context? How does one assess an academic argument which uses oral evidence or personal experience? What does it mean to be culturally inclusive in one’s teaching? This paper argues that academics must accept the disruptive challenge of alternative constructions of knowledge, including personal histories, if the notion of what it means to be culturally inclusive is to be more than a token. Introduction Asclacadusiveemiofcsintustditutentsiofnsrobemcodimeversiencbreasingly inackgrounds-, the students’ cultural and historical contexts form a dynamic scaffold upon which Western academic conventions of knowledge (whatever they are) are grafted. Yet, academic teachers in universities frequently have little understanding of the cultural and historical contexts of their students, thus endangering the viability of the ‘graft.’ Ironically, when students provide such contexts for their conceptual development, especially as a reflective practice in their assessed writing, the experience fragments presented are often un- assessed relative to other data. This is particularly so if the experiences are from a minority culture, such as Indigenous Australian-one significantly removed from the academic’s own ontological view. This paper addresses some of the issues concerning inclusive education and cultural difference, with particular regard to the use of oral history, personal experience, or anecdote in assessed essays. The paper takes its theoretical lead from the research of mathematics teacher-educator, Ron Tzur (2001), who contends that development occurs “via reflection on activities” and “the presentation and analysis of fragments of experience”(p. 260). In keeping with social constructivist models of learning, and drawing on the work of Dewey, Piaget, and Schön, Tzur considers that “reflection on one’s actions and on those of others while interacting with people and objects in the environment…[is] the mental root of conceptual development” (p. 261) . This contention, along with an almost axiomatic distrust of oral sources by academics, gives rise to important questions for teachers in universities, notably the following: 1. How should one regard oral history or personal experience in an academic context? 2. How does one assess an academic argument which uses oral evidence or personal experience? 3. What does it mean to be culturally inclusive in one’s teaching? ‘Academic’ Writing? Historically, writing has functioned to keep records more permanently and accessibly than in oral forms. Academic institutions have long asserted the primacy of the written over the oral, where the former is assumed to be objective, factual, and verifiable, and the latter is subjective, unreliable, and transient. Orally held knowledges, such as those pertaining to life histories, are often distrusted in academic discourses unless they can be supported by written evidence, while the absence of written records is understood to infer an absence of knowledge (e.g., Rose, 2001, p. 112-113) . An Indigenous student, for example, is thus confronted with a dilemma. If she records her experiences without supporting documentation, her oral histories and knowledges are suspect. If she does not record her experiences, she is considered an ‘insider,’as having nothing significantly different in her experience to report. Either way, the dilemma materially disadvantages the student. All evidence is experienced, whether

FAQs

What are the three questions the paper addresses?

The paper asks: how to regard oral history or personal experience in an academic context; how to assess academic arguments using oral evidence or personal experience; and what cultural inclusion means in one’s teaching.

Why does the paper challenge academic reliance on written evidence?

It argues that written primacy does not guarantee accuracy, and that oral sources are often ignored rather than critiqued. Meaning and knowledge are constructed through engagement with data relative to learners’ contexts.

How does the paper describe the dilemma faced by an Indigenous student?

The student is disadvantaged either by having oral histories treated as suspect without documentation, or by being treated as an “insider” with nothing significantly different to report if the experiences are not recorded.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by awa