Enhancing Student Assessment, some findings and suggestions for reform

1. Enhancing Student Assessment, some findings and suggestions for reform Feisal A. Yunis, Cairo University Robert Schofield, QAAP F. Yunis & R. Schofield

2. Weaknesses in Student Assessment Encountered in 16 Developmental engagements • Individual rather than Faculty responsibility • Assessments not at appropriate level • Failure to assess many stated ILOs • Preponderance of testing of knowledge recall • Over-generous and non-systematic marking • High grades gained on coursework masking poor examination performance • Plagiarism in coursework on a large scale • Arbitrary raising of marks/grades to achieve an artificial target F. Yunis & R. Schofield

3. Weaknesses in Student Assessment Encountered in 16 Developmental Engagements (continued) • Large student numbers causing marking difficulties • No reference to external reference points • No internal or external evaluation • Insecurity of assessment tasks • Coaching for known questions • Little formative assessment through structured feedback • Functions of examination committees unclear and ignored F. Yunis & R. Schofield

4. Other problems • Other forms of assessment of student achievement are not practiced as should be. • Oral examinations are without standards • The other types of outcomes are not measured: Student characteristics: ways of thinking, communications skills, etc…. • Examinations are carried out in non humane physical environments, tents, corridors, suffocating rooms. • Invigilators are untrained, sometimes unfriendly, some other times very very lenient. F. Yunis & R. Schofield

5. What the Department chairpersons can do?(1) • Insisting on a syllabus and a course file for each course. • Establish a monitoring mechanism for checking, (possible mechanism: a Committee for documentation of the Learning process). • Reactivating the role of the co-examiner (e.g. by blind re-marking). • Regular checking of examination contents to guarantee covering of the syllabus and measuring different types of outcomes. F. Yunis & R. Schofield

6. What the Department chairpersons can do?(2) • Arrange for the Establishment of a bank of questions covering the syllabus for every course. It should contains a large number of items, spanning all levels of difficulties and engaging as many outcomes as possible. • The exams should be drawn from the bank by a single person based on specified criteria. • Invite an External evaluator who, together with the HOD, ensures the standards and appropriateness of the questions in the bank with respect to the assessment of the range of ILOs, check the exam papers, after the exam. • After the examination, arrange for evaluating the degree to which the examination paper was adequate for the ILOs. F. Yunis & R. Schofield

7. What the Departments chairpersons can do? (3) • Promote a culture rejecting plagiarism: through including information on what is considered plagiarism within some of the early courses, Including Teaching of ethics of study and research as part of the programs, training faculty in spotting plagiarism etc… • Allow students the right to examine their answers and discuss it with faculty and assistants (when the numbers is the problem). F. Yunis & R. Schofield

8. What the Departments chairpersons can do? (4) • REGULATE AND STANDARDIZE ORAL AND CLINICAL EXAMINATIONS F. Yunis & R. Schofield

9. What the Faculty administration can do? • Allowing for assessment methods other than written exams as much as possible. • This will be easier in postgraduate programs, Undergraduate programs with limited number of students and/or higher numbers of faculty available. • This also might need some changes in the rules and regulations redefining faculty work load in terms wider than the present teaching hours system. F. Yunis & R. Schofield

10. What the Faculty administration can do? (2) • Establish an examiners committee to monitor the compliance with the "Student Assessment Code of Practice". • Look into methods of standardization of oral, practical, and clinical assessments and enforce standards of good practice and seek changes of rules and regulations as necessary. • Arrange for samples of coursework and oral examinations to be reviewed by external evaluators. • Allow for students complaints mechanism to the Examiners committees. F. Yunis & R. Schofield

11. What the Faculty administration can do? (3) • Reconsider the participation of faculty in assessment (engaging junior staff, Faculties who do not take their full loads, etc..) and suggest possible changes in the regulations governing work loads to give more time to assessment if possible. • Arrange for modifications of the rules and regulations to guarantee that the student will pass both of the two elements of assessment for a course, unseen time-limited examination, and overall coursework • Provide training for faculty members and invigilators on the rules and regulations of the examinations and establish a monitoring system to follow compliance. F. Yunis & R. Schofield

12. What the University leadership can do? (1) Establish an assessment and evaluation center with the following tasks: • Help develop and implement standards of good practice in the assessment domain. • Initiate training for faculty on modern methods for student assessment. • Encourage ideas and experimentation in new methods of assessment that can fit with the assessment environment. • Contains a University wide unit for assessing other types of outcomes common to the University : e.g. critical thinking skills, communication skills etc….. This should be on entry and on exit. F. Yunis & R. Schofield

13. What the University leadership can do? (2) • Look for more funding to deal with the problems of the physical environment. • Reconsiders the roles and regulations present in assessment and seek necessary changes to comply with good practice. F. Yunis & R. Schofield

14. These are minimal changes, needs very little more funding, with huge impact on the quality of student assessment practices. F. Yunis & R. Schofield