Discussion in students' involvement in the formulation of assessment

Group work is frequently included in tertiary education courses across a wide range of subject domains, including computing and information science as stated by Dunne and Rawlins (2000), and Lejk, Wyvill, and Farrow (1996). This is based upon a strong theoretical rationale for developing in students more communicative and interactive ways of working within their future employment settings. Group work provides one context in which the development of communication and interpersonal skills within particular discipline areas can be encouraged and student-centred experience purposefully achieved. As stated by Norton (2004) and Gibbs (1999), when group work is linked to assessment, it is potentially a powerful lever that can drive not just what students learn, but also how they learn. In this context, the application as well as the accretion of knowledge and skills was emphasized, with the processes of learning and teamwork being valued alongside the subject content.

For this assessment project, students were able to self select their groups as well as the size of their groups. This resulted in groups that were varied in terms of academic ability, gender, language, and ethnic background. Although most surveys report that students prefer groups of 3-4 as this facilitates work distribution, in this case pairs were the most preferred option (University of Essex, 2000). Additional factors concerning group size relate to the nature and complexity of the task and the extent to which the situation reflects the real world context (Race, 2000). Although the task was a complex one involving several phases of conceptual development, and application and implementation processes that mirror practices in industry, the paired groups worked efficiently on the tasks. Also, the practice of working in pairs / small groups closely reflects the situation in industry providing students more realistic experience. While larger groups generally offer the benefits of exposing students to more roles operating within team environments, the smaller group experience in this context probably exposed students to the demands of taking on several roles and responsibilities within a single project (University of Essex, 2000). Whilst the important advantage associated with small group size identified by Race, namely relative ease in arranging group meetings was realized in this case, potential problems associated with disputes working in pairs did not arise (Race, 2000).

Students adopted a range of methods of working showing a tendency to work more in labs than out of labs. Given the high percentage of students who had reported working continuously/ regularly, it was surprising that effective time management was identified as a significant and ongoing challenge. Students putting in a huge amount of work "at the last minute" to complete assignments on time is not unusual, but appears to contradict what students actually reported about how they managed their time. Several modes of communication were used - face-to-face, email, and telephone. Although there was a preference for face-to-face communication, there was evidence of emergent skills necessary for working in virtual teams in the IT industry where graduates equipped with these course units will be competing for employment.

Within the current computer science education context, objectives such as developing students capable of critical thinking and application of their knowledge to solve problems typical of real world situations is highly important and is also prioritized within the graduate attributes framework at Edith Cowan University (2002). Within a statistics education environment, Garfield pointed to the importance for assessments to match such learning outcomes, a notion that is widely supported in more recent literature (Garfield, 1994). For instance, Biggs (1999); Gibbs (2002); and Maclellan (2004) point to the marked shift from an exclusive evaluation of declarative knowledge towards assessment practices that are aimed at assessing procedural, strategic and conditional knowledge. Berlak's notion that assessment tasks should reflect the ways in which knowledge and skills are used in real world contexts was a guiding factor in the formulation of the assessment task (Berlak, 1992). The process-based assessment task provided opportunity for students to develop their conceptual subject knowledge and apply this to a "problem" that reflects the real world situation, thus broadening the role of assessment from merely testing and assigning grades to include both formative and evaluative components also as stated by Rowntree (1987); and Hornby (2003) respectively. Although students had to produce a tangible product in this project, the learning situation was "awash with process", i.e. students with ideas, with one another, with the lecturer, with the broader learning environment (Rowntree, 1987). The assessment integrated both process and content objectives. Thus two basic principles of assessment were present: the content principle, i.e. assessment should reflect the subject content important for students to learn; and the learning principle, i.e. the assessment enhanced students' knowledge of computer programming and integrated peer and teacher support as elements of good instructional practice (Pitts et al., 2001). Moreover, several reasons for the preference of adopting authentic assessment were applicable. First, this assessment provided insights into how students connected content knowledge to a given problem. Second, it demonstrated the nature of development students experienced in the construction of a computing product. Third, the process of continual peer and teacher feedback enabled students to adjust and improve their performance (Janesick, 2001). Overall, this assessment project effectively captured how students think, reason and apply their knowledge and skills to solve problems, and identified the team processes and interpersonal communication skills that students utilized in the group learning environment.

The group learning experience also enhanced the development of students' generic skills. The findings were similar to those reported by Dunne & Rawlins (2000); Freeman (1995); Harvey & Green (1994); Johnson & Miles (2004); and Medlin, Graves & McGowan (2003). Students' development was realized in the following areas: exposure to alternate points of view; improved communication and interpersonal skills; effective planning and time management skills; co-operation and negotiation skills; problem solving and decision making skills; leadership skills; critical thinking and analytical skills; enhanced self-efficacy; improved social skills and greater inter-cultural understanding.

The open-ended questions included in the questionnaire probed the nature and quality of students' learning. Several learning benefits were evident. Firstly, the process encouraged students to reflect on their individual learning styles and strategies as well as the interpersonal communication skills adopted in the group learning situation. This raised students' awareness about individual learning habits and processes and their verbal and written communication skills. A second significant benefit was that the group learning environment enhanced students' motivation. A majority of students reported that the group context created a general ethos where they wanted to learn. Although Race describes this feeling as intrinsic motivation, he claims that it is more powerful to describe it as a "want" for the personal development that individual students realized in this case (Race, 2000). Students identified that collaboration with group members improved their learning, and that they had established a personal ownership for wanting to learn in the group. Enhanced motivation to learn was demonstrated by various efforts to make their learning in groups more active (i.e. learning by doing) and supporting each other to make sense of complex ideas. Students also reported that the group learning experience made their learning of the subject more enjoyable, enabled them to obtain peer feedback about their evolving subject knowledge, and working with others helped them develop useful skills which employers value, i.e. strong capacities for inquiry, abstract and logical thinking, critical analysis, oral and written communication, and interpersonal skills (Medlin, Graves & McGowan 2003). These reported benefits deserve further exploration using Newmann's three standards (i.e. analysis, disciplinary concepts, and elaborated written communication) for judging the authenticity of intellectual achievement (Newmann, 1997). The varying degrees of success experienced by groups may be attributed to factors such as the establishment of well- defined ground rules, group cohesion, acceptance of collective responsibility, full participation of group members, fair distribution of the workload, working to the strengths of group members, valuing creativity and innovation, and perhaps also managing systematic work patterns. Overall, Gibbs's (1999) argument that assessment has a significant impact on students' approaches to learning was well demonstrated during this assessment project, as was Maclellan's (2004) view that assessment tasks influence the quality of students' learning.

The group learning situation also presented several benefits for the coursework unit co-ordinator / lecturer. Students studying collaboratively removed much of the pressure from leading the group and allowed more time for planning and preparation. Additional benefits were that it made students less dependent on the lecturer to learn subject content; peer learning helped the weaker learners perform better and less time was spent explaining the same things to different students and providing feedback formatively. It also helped teachers understand the students better as individuals and make appropriate adjustments within the teaching-learning environment (Race, 2000).

From an educational perspective, several of the common issues with group assessment were highlighted earlier. It is well established in practice that group assessment may successfully address some of the workload constraints for both staff and students. Group size is usually prescribed to manage task distribution and individual students' contributions within groups. Group membership may also be prescribed by teaching staff. Both prescriptions often do not take into account students' working lives, mutual compatibility, and contribution - potentially engendering dysfunctionality. This experiment has shown that there is a positive relationship between students' determination of group size/membership and the distribution and management of workload. The relationship was found to affect the functionality of groups and minimize commonly occurring problems associated with dysfunctional prescribed groups.

This innovation has also shown that the success of group assessment is enhanced when both process and product orientations are matched to authentic tasks that create a context for the application of generic and disciplinary knowledge and skills. For example, the concept of negotiation is prevalent in the IT industry, where software practitioners frequently liaise in some depth with project clients and, of course, within the team. To this end, the negotiated assessment outcomes and the ability to choose team membership from within the student cohort somewhat paralleled team dynamics in the current IT industry.

Negotiation yielded students' ownership of the assessment via an open and democratic process, leading to greater positive acceptance of the task at hand and a greater willingness in students to engage and overcome problems of group dynamics and micro-management of individual contributions. It is clear from the survey results that students felt positively towards the implemented negotiated group assessment to the point that colleagues' concerns were mitigated successfully. In wider application, such relative freedom of choice within assessment offers potential to combat similarly acknowledged difficulties with group assessment. For example, less time was spent by teaching staff arbitrating on issues within groups, itself a cost saving; the experiment was successful with a moderate (104 students) sized total cohort, in a multi-campus model and across different units, suggesting that the process may be sustainable for wider delivery and with larger cohorts. In terms of students' resistance to group work, the option of working as singletons to triples was felt by students to cater for their needs.

مواضيع ذات صلة

Research methodology The action inquiry process

Significance of the research

Design assessment and feedback

Feedback and learning

Assessment, learning and feedback in higher education Assessment and learning

Effective Verbal Feedback for Project-Based Assessment: A Case Study of the Graphic Design Critique

Further considerations for the student experience

The student experience Discussion

Comments from a student with a mark lower than expected

Comments from another student who agreed with the mark

Comments from a student who agreed with the mark

Comments from a student whose marks were above expectation