This is the description of the case 11 for activity 2 in course H807
Background and Context
The Business School of Glamorgan’s University ascertains that with the actual system of assessment, the students do not work during the whole term until the assessment period. It results that the pass rates are low and fall off year after year. The University wants to find a way to force the students to work regularly but also to help them to fill their lacks by a system of constant evaluation that should permit to measure student development and identify where additional support is needed. It should also provide feedback on the students’ progress permitting a self-reflective approach of learning.
To stop this ineluctable fall in the pass rates, the decision is taken to change the method of evaluation and to adopt online tools to support the new strategy.
Project description
The new method introduced by the University consists of fractionating the evaluation in several phased online summative assessments. At the commencement of the accounting module the students receive the lecture program with the dates of their online summative assessments and the topic areas to be tested.
A bank of questions (400) was created, separated into topic groupings and comprised multiple-choice, multiple-response, true/false, yes/no and text match questions. Five online assessments were written with computer random chosen questions. Every exam was then tested to ensure the coherence and the equality of difficulty among all.
Each question has a feedback to help the student who would have false answered. A report with feedback and score was given to each student after their exam. The exams took place at different moment during the week due to the number of students and the lack of IT facilities (3 groups of 20 students). To avoid forbidden access to the tests they were password protected with a different password for each session.
Tools in use
The University has chosen to use Question Mark’s Perception product (QMP) a web-based assessment tool which facilitate the creation, the delivery, tracking and management of online assessments, quizzes and surveys.
The tool can be easy integrated into BlackBoard, the LMS used by the Univesity of Glamorgan.
Tangible benefits
For the students
The tangible benefits are twofold : the new method of assessment permits an noticeable improvement in the pass rate. The students feel themselves more framed and supported by having regularly to work and to pass exams. The direct feedback after each exam is also something pointed out as a very good thing.
For the staff
Once the all the creation work done with QMP, the working process to organise new and different assessments is costless. The principle of phased online summative assessment has proven its strength, it will be introduced and adapted for other modules across the University.
Disavantages and Drawbacks
None. A part the initial work to enter the huge number of question, but because the system is durable, the rapport initial costs / time of usage is low.
Conditions of success
- The project is supported by the CELT (Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching)
- The project costs (mainly to buy QMP) were supported by the faculty and CELT
