The assessment of students and how to grade them is a much debated issue. Boud (1995, p.35) describes assessment as one of the worst areas for “bad practice and ignorance” in higher education, but to be able to quantify the level of understanding reached by students, some form
39 of assessment needs to be done. The “MacFarlane Report (1992)” states that “assessment is the single most influential factor on student learning” (Falchikov, 1995, p.160). However, several important items need to be considered before the assessment takes place, including whether to assess the outcome or the method of achieving it.
SAQA (2001, pp.16-19) guidelines for a credible assessment are that they should be fair, valid, reliable and practical. This is because they typically “affect personal, social and economic progression and mobility in society”. They should thus “provide accurate information about the individual”. To gain a better understanding of a students’ abilities SAQA (2001, p.51)
recommends that more than one assessment method be used. There are a number of assessment methods recommended by SAQA together with a variety of assessment instruments to choose from (SAQA, 2001, p.26). Ramsden (2003, p.184) poses two important points about choosing a method. Firstly it is not the method that determines the learning but how students relate to them and secondly that no one method will suffice.
One of the most important components of assessment is feedback to students of assessments (Ramsden, 1992, p.99). Huba and Freed (2000, p.153) indicate that not only do students need feedback but they also need to learn how to use it.
2.5.1.1 Assessment of group work
One of SAQA’s eight critical cross-field outcomes is to be able to work with others as a group (SAQA, 2001, p.24). It further suggests that to encourage learners to reflect on their learning, peer assessment of group activities could be undertaken (SAQA, 2001, p.36). Setting and assessing group work can benefit student development since they have to work collaboratively.
They can usually achieve more as a group than individually and there is less marking to be done (Brown, Race and Rust (1995, p.83).
Brown, Race and Smith, (1995, p.26) suggest getting students involved in assessing as a learning task. When assessing work done by students this can be done by assessing the process or by assessing the product (ibid, 1996, p.18). In this study only the product was assessed by students. However aspects of how they constructed the spreadsheets would come into the assessment since students would have to interact with their peer’s spreadsheet to perform a task.
They further suggest that “assessment methods can be designed to maximise student
40 motivation” and that students will only put effort into work that is rewarded (ibid, 1996, p.17).
They also stipulate that assessment criteria be clear (ibid, 1996, p.60).
The assessment methods used in the Thermodynamics II subject have been described in Chapter 1.4. Even though these methods have been used for many years, educationists must always be open to the possibility that the assessment methods do not match with the learning programme.
So for this research project, some new tools of assessment for this subject were devised and utilised, namely peer assessment (discussed in the next section) and the concept test (quiz), described in Chapter 3.10.
2.5.1.2 Peer assessment
The practice of assessing one’s peers as part of the overall assessment of any particular component of a subject is becoming more popular and acceptable, helping to create more awareness by students of the process involved and to “take ownership of their learning”
(Beylefeld, Joubert, Jama & de Klerk, 2003, p.6). At Manchester Metropolitan University (as cited in
Haywood, 2000, p.378),
although students were of the opinion that assessment was a tutors job, they realised that it was motivating as they felt a part of the process. For formative assessments peer assessment can take the form of two different types, intra-peer group, whereby students assess the performance of their group members or inter-peer, whereby students assess the products of other groups (Brown, Race and Rust (1995, p.83). In this study the latter was to be evaluated, whereby each group was to assess one other group’s computer spreadsheet.Student feedback of peer assessment indicates that they see it as useful, in that it provides enlightenment into how the other students go about their work, and the fact that there are multiple markers is seen as fairer by the students themselves (Falchikov, 1995, p.160).
Mindham (1998, p.50) mentions that “students facing peer assessment for the first time will feel uncomfortable, inadequate or inexperienced”. Another problem associated with peer assessment has been unwillingness to award a mark and also of failing a peer (Falchikov, 1995, p.160).
Heywood (2000, p.376) argues of the reliability of summative peer assessment in the early stages of a student’s career and that formative peer assessment “should be regarded as training for later…years”. It thus needs to be guided carefully such that all students are aware of the processes and they are assessing each other in a consistent way. This process can be assisted by using a rubric, the details being discussed in Chapter 3.8.3.
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Summary
This then sets the scene for the intervention. Learning as applied to students can take on many forms and variations, which can change with the context of the situation in which it is being presented. Delivery, and the context in which it is delivered, can also affect the learning and its style. Computers have placed another tool into the teachers’ arsenal, but as with all new systems, can have unpredictable effects. Within this framework, and using computers as an aid to the teaching and learning process, a computer assisted intervention comprising several tasks was formulated and is described in Chapter 3, together with the paradigms in which they sit.
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