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Assessment and the First Year Experience

Explore the principles and practices of formative assessment and self-regulated learning to improve first-year students' academic experience. Case studies, key research findings, and feedback strategies are discussed.

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Assessment and the First Year Experience

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  1. Assessment and the First Year Experience Dr David Nicol, Project Director, REAP www.reap.ac.uk Head of Research & Development in E-learning Centre for Academic Practice and Learning Enhancement (CAPLE) University of Strathclyde Joint Meeting of QAA: Integrative Assessment and First Year Experience Steering Groups Edinburgh University, 30 May 2006

  2. My Plan • Two recent literature reviews on assessment (synthesis) • Case study of first year assessment redesign (drawn from REAP project) • Analysis of case study in relation to assessment principles • Identify relevance to broad aims of IA and FYE work

  3. First Year: The academic experience What is important? • Coping with transition • Understanding what is required • Engagement with academic programmes • Support and feedback • Experiences of success • Agents in own learning • Belief in self (ability) and motivation • Social dynamics of learning (belonging) Yorke and Tinto’s research

  4. Gibbs and Simpson (2004) Gibbs, G. & Simpson, C (2004) Conditions under which assessment supports students learning, Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, 1, 3-31. See: Formative Assessment in Science Teaching (FAST) project at: http://www.open.ac.uk/science/fdtl/

  5. Gibbs and Simpson (2004) • Assessment tasks [Conditions 1-4] • Capture enough study time (in and out of class) • Are spread out evenly across timeline of study • Lead to productive activity (deep vs surface) • Communicate clear and high expectations

  6. Gibbs and Simpson (2004) • Feedback [Conditions 5-11] • Is sufficient (in frequency; detail) • Is provided quickly enough to be useful • Focuses on learning rather than on marks • Is linked to assessment criteria/expected outcomes • Makes sense to students • Is received by students and attended to • Is acted upon, to improve work and/or learning

  7. Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick (2006) • Literature review: Nicol, D. & Macfarlane-Dick, D. (2006). Formative assessment and self-regulated learning: A model and seven principles of good feedback practice. Studies in Higher Education, 34 (1), 199-218 See: • Student Enhanced Learning through Effective Feedback [SENLEF] project funded by HE Academy • REAP project: www.reap.ac.uk

  8. Research on Assessment in HE Teaching/learning paradigm Transmission Constructivist [student-centred] Assessment paradigm Transmission [teacher-centred]

  9. Some key research findings • Students are always engaged in self-assessment/self-regulation of their own learning (Winne, 2005; Black & Wiliam, 2005). Logically entailed by constructivist ideas. • The act of using teacher feedback implies that self-assessment must be present (Sadler, 1983, Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick, 2006) • Feedback in HE is being significantly reduced so how are students still learning? • The question is: how can we scaffold students learning so they become better at self-regulation of learning? (Lajoie, 2005)

  10. Scaffolding self regulation: 7 principles of good feedback • Clarify what good performance is (goals, criteria, standards). • Facilitate reflection and self-assessment in learning • Deliver high quality feedback to students: feedback that enables students to monitor and self-correct • Encourage peer and tutor dialogue around learning • Encourage positive motivational beliefs & self esteem through assessment • Provide opportunities to close the feedback loop • Use feedback information to shape teaching Source: Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick (2006) Formative assessment and self-regulated learning: A model and seven principles of good feedback practice, Studies in Higher Education

  11. Re-engineering Assessment Practices [REAP] Psychology Case Study Context: • 560 first year students • Mixture of psychology majors (130) and those taking psychology only for one year (430) • 6 topic areas, 48 lectures, 4 tutorials, 12 practicals • Assessment; 2 x MCQs (25%), tutorial attendance (4%), taking part in experiment (5%), essay exam (66%)

  12. Psychology Case Study Problems identified with the course: • Students got no practice in writing skills but required in the exam • No feedback except on MCQs (percent correct) • Didn’t want to increase staff workload • Wanted to improve overall exam marks • And standard of entrant to second year

  13. Psychology re-design Stage 1: Question 1: moderate difficulty (50 words) Individual response – post it –discuss answer in groups (of 6) Timed release: model answer to self-evaluate their response Stage 2: Question 2: difficult (100 words) Group response – discuss (online) – agree – post response Model answer released for stage 2 Stage 3: Question 3: complex (300 word essay) Group response – discuss (online) – agree – post Model answer released for stage 3

  14. Psychology re-design: key features • Writing tasks related to current lecture delivery (on human memory). • 78 volunteers –induction task • Question of increasing difficulty and length of answer (50 words, 100 words and 300 words) • Moving from individual to group responses. • ‘Scaffolding’ of learning through peer discussion (and cognitive growth thro conflict resolution) • Comparing work against model answers • Use of assignment/ discussion tools in (WebCT)

  15. Planned developments • Replace half the lectures with discussion tasks • Tasks will become progressively more demanding within and across topics as the year progresses. • Participation will be compulsory and monitored • Once a final group response has been agreed each student will submit a copy to VLE (WebCT) • Purpose is to check on participation rates and ensure that all students have at least ‘had sight’ of the group response. Source: Jim Baxter, Psychology, Strathclyde University

  16. The seven feedback principles • Standard format and model answers provide progressive clarification of expectations (clear goals, principle 1) • Students encouraged to self-assess against model answer (self-assessment, principle 2) • Online peer discussion aimed at reaching consensus about response (dialogue, principle 4) • Staged complexity and focus on learning rather marks (motivation, principle 5) • Repeated cycle of topics and tasks (closing gap, principle 6) • Tutors can monitor progress and adapt (shaping teaching, principle 7)

  17. Gibbs & Simpson’s four assessment conditions • Assessment tasks require significant study out of class (capture sufficient study time, condition 1) • They are distributed across topics and weeks (are spread out evenly, condition 2) • They move students progressively to deeper levels of understanding (productive/ deep learning, condition 3) • There are explicit goals and progressive increase in challenge (communicates clear and high expectations, condition 4)

  18. What can we learn from this case study? • Use of a simple technology (discussion board) • Considerable thought gone into the pedagogical design [which is transferable]. • Supported by robust assessment/learning principles • Coordinated approach within the department • Evaluation showed a lot of supportive socialisation during induction task • Intention to compare year on year examination performance.

  19. Integrative Assessment and the FYE Supporting the FYE through assessment requires that learners have opportunities to evaluate their own learning and achievement. Integration occurs in a number of ways: there is a need to • Integrate self, peer and tutor assessment processes • Integrate opportunities for self-regulation within organised academic structures and activities. • Integrate formative with summative processes • Integrate assessment into teaching and learning activities.

  20. First Year: The academic experience What is important? • Coping with transition • Understanding what is required • Engagement with academic programmes • Support and feedback • Experiences of success • Sense of agency in own learning • Belief in self (ability) and motivation • Social dynamics of learning (belonging) Yorke and Tinto’s research

  21. Other relevant papers Nicol, D (draft), Laying the foundation for lifelong learning: cases studies of technology supported assessment processes in large first year classes, British Journal of Educational Technology. Nicol, D. & Milligan, C. (2006), Rethinking technology-supported assessment in relation to the seven principles of good feedback practice. In C. Bryan and K. Clegg, Innovations in Assessment, Routledge.

  22. Questions and discussion

  23. Psychology • Task 1: Define and describe structural encoding, phonological encoding and semantic encoding. Provide an example of each construct. (50 words, individual) • Task 2: Describe the serial position effect and its two separate components. Discuss the specific structural components of memory that are responsible. (100 word, group response) • Task 3: Summarise the ‘stage theory’ of memory. To what extent does it provide an adequate theory of memory? (300 word, group response)

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