Twenty people gathered in Bristol to hear and discuss various aspects
of assessment. After the welcome and initial introduction to LTSN Bioscience
by Dr Heather Sears the following took place
Dr Colin Hughes, Nottingham Trent University
An introduction to the topic of assessment and what constitutes good
practice. Colin highlighted that there is a vast amount of literature
on assessment, whereas feedback is often overlooked. With this in mind,
work is in progress to change perceptions of assessment; assessment as
part of the learning process, not just the measuring of learning that
has already taken place. Under the changes s students are assessed less
frequently requiring the necessary improvement in the quality of feedback.
Colin argued for increased attention to be given to task setting, a consistent
approach throughout and giving assessment the time it requires. Do the
task criteria serve deep learning vs surface learning? Do students understand
the task criteria? Do students understand the feedback (formative and
summative). Does the feedback encourage reflection?
Issues and techniques to address these aspects were presented.
Prof Ian Hughes - LTSN Bioscience
Delegates had the opportunity to evaluate their own modules using
the Assessment Audit Tool. Time was made available to obtain feedback
and ideas from other participants and the various ways to pick up assessment
problems and change practice were discussed.
View
Ian's assessment audit presentation
Download the Assessment
Audit Tool (pdf)
Four short contributions from participants
1. Assessing Entrepreneurship Learning Outcomes in Bioscience.
Peter Mitchell, University of Ulster
Why should scientists study business and management? Peter described
how Entrepreneurship was encouraged by local policies and how the opportunity
to include aspects of this had been incorporated into the curriculum.
Work expectations had changed; employers want more than subject knowledge
- management and 'people skills' were sought after and valuable. UU
has a clear policy for 11 learning outcomes and transferable skills
to be embedded in the UU curriculum where possible. 'Packages' were
integrated into modules. Students were creating a business proposition
and backing it up with a business plan.
Peter illustrated the package he had created for biological sciences.
Issues of group work and effort balancing were discussed but the experience
was a very positive one and it was hoped it could be disseminated into
in postgraduate work in a similar way. Students retain the IPR and can
discuss ideas with the University Innovations Unit (Univations) if the
business case looks reasonable.
View
Peter's presentation
2. Experiences of using CBA with mature part-time students.
Richard Rayne (& Glenn Bagott) Birkbeck College
Richard presented some of the experiences of using Computer Based Assessment
(CBA) with part-time students at Birkbeck and how the assessment of
students in this medium can help reduce difficulties in situations where
English is not the student's first language. Performance statistics
were compared and discussed. A view of the delivery system (TRIADS)
was included and links to the OLAAF
project based at Birkbeck.
3. Assessment of poster presentations and reports.
Alan Hill, Queens University Belfast.
Alan described how the assessment of group poster presentations had
been developed to include elements of peer and self assessment. This
was valuable for teaching students how to assess their work so they
can measure its value. Students can compare posters in a group enabling
students to observe good practice in other work. How to incorporate
this, how to split the marks, how can it be accurate was difficult.
Posters were double marked, moderated by student comment on self and
others. An example of a Glucose assay was shown illustrating how students
receive a mark sheet with clear criteria on quality of presentation
not content. Students are set in the context of a laboratory, advertising
their assay services.
Difficulties balancing within group marks and how these were resolved
by tutors were discussed.
4. On-line assessment in Birkbeck Colleges online M.Sc in Structural
Biology.
Clare Sansom, Birkbeck college.
Clare described the advantages and disadvantages for a wide range of
students using this medium for studying on-line. Birkbeck produced the
first on-line postgraduate course in the country. Clare described how
this had developed since its launch. Link
to the On-line MSc Course information.
Dr. Janice Harland, Liverpool John Moores University
Staff are used to giving feedback on coursework performance, probably
in several different ways. However, giving feedback on examination performance
is more problematical. Depending on circumstances, students are likely
to be hard to gather together in one place and anyway are ready to move
onto the next subject. Particularly in modular schemes they tend to compartmentalise
learning and may just want to forget what happened last term/semester/year
rather than seeing the relevance of what is past to what is to come. However,
QAA and others are encouraging us to find ways of helping students learn
from their examination performance, making it formative as well as summative.
Student compartmentalise things and can sometimes forget what they learn.
Why give feedback on exams? What kinds of feedback, how and when?
Why – QAA guidelines. But these are vague and not prescriptive.
Compulsory feedback on exams was not accepted but why not? Can it be done?
Most common problem appears to be the concern over student nitpicking
and the amount of time and effort this can consume. Time available for
exam marking is quite limited already. Janice talked about how good students
can also benefit from feedback (not only those who have problems). The
value of model answers and mark schemes was discussed and experiences
of giving feedback immediately after exam. techniques for helping the
students consider the feedback e.g. giving feedback without a mark has
shown that students can be far more receptive.
Compulsory feedback sessions are more productive but these are difficult
for larger courses once the preferred 'tutorial size' has been exceeded.
A project using Electronic
feedback was proving popular with all students. This could build a
comment bank over a number of years leading to better and quicker feedback.
When giving feedback there were different methods and experiences in levels
2 and 3. Some leave it too late to pick up marks for the feedback to be
of any use. Tutor groups telling students to go see other tutors does
work but some students don’t turn up to study skills session when
they should.
Conclusions: Individual comments are best but are difficult to reach all.
More staff adopters the more it is valued. Electronic systems seem most
robust but email patchy, VLE’s promising.
View
Janice's presentation
Dr. Tony Gardner-Medwin, University College
Confidence-based assessment, in which a student's rating of his/her confidence
in an answer is taken into account in the marking of the answer, has been
used for many years at UCL and IC in formative assessments (i.e. during
student study) and in the last two years for summative (i.e. formal end-of-year)
exams for medical students at UCL. The principles are well founded in
information theory, and experience in the exams has shown a marked increase
in the statistical reliability of the scores for prediction of students'
performance on separate sets of questions. Feedback about confident errors
in coursework helps students become aware of the areas and topics where
their knowledge is tenuous, while the act of thinking about confidence
helps to encourage re-reading of questions, checking of answers and reflection
on ways in which different aspects of knowledge may inter-relate.
Tony demonstrated a standalone program for use in the PC environment.
This was downloaded without problems by students. Students use lite version
and are encouraged to share the experience with students in other Medical
Schools. This was currently used in formative assessment only. As students
give confidence estimate with an answer (to increase their mark) they
are encouraged to reflect on their confidence immediately. A lack of confidence
illustrates to the student, during the exercise, that they have an area
to address. The theoretical aspects were discussed (it may be possible
to get the same discrimination with around 1/3 of the questions) and the
audience were encouraged to visit
the LAPT project website for further information.
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