Are formative exercises taken

seriously? Student use of a

voluntary on-line exercise for case-

based assignment preparation

Terry Stewart1 and Ee Kheng Ang2

1. Centre for Teaching and Learning

2. School of Management

Massey University

• First year business degree students required to complete

a case-based assignment on ethical issues

• Most find this difficult

• An optional “Walkthrough” on-line case was developed

to

– Prime the students to tackle the assessable assignment

– Make the assignment more interesting so increasing

engagement

– Help make a distinction between ethics and law

The Problem

• Did undertaking the on-line walkthrough assist

students with the assignment?

• How did students engage with the on-line

walkthrough?

• How seriously did they take the exercise?

Broad questions

• 1157 students over four simultaneous offerings

– Albany (328)

– Manawatu (288)

– Wellington (84)

– Distance (457)

• One lecturer for Albany, one lecturer for

Wellington and one lecturer for Manawatu and

Distance

The class

• Assignment 1

• 1800 word essay

• show how the given situation constituted an

ethical dilemma for all involved

• Offer advice on how to resolve the situation

• Worth 20% of the final mark

The assignment

• Available via Stream (Moodle) using SBL

interactive

• Made available a month from the assignment

due date

• Exercise was in two parts:

– Unfolding narrative with questions

– Techniques for preparing the assignment report

The walkthrough

Example Screens (1)

Example Screens (2)

Example Screens (3)

• SBLi logs

– Engagement reflected in walkthrough visit versus no visit

and answers to question scored as:

• Never attempted

• Attempted but simply to get feedback

• A serious attempt at the question

• Correlations of engagement against assignment

mark and Grade Point Average (GPA)

• Comparisons between mode and campus

• Student satisfaction survey

Data Sources and

analysis

• 41% (480 students) clicked on the walkthrough

• Of those that started:

– 22.3% never got to the first question

– 33.5% got through to the last question

– only 9.6% of students were seriously attempting the

questions by the time they got through to the last one

Results – Overall

engagement

Overall engagement –

Whole class

Influence of the tutor

Mode and/or

campus

Total roll Visited

walkthrough

% who visited

walkthrough

Manawatu 288 169 58.7

Albany

(Auckland)

328 72 22.0

Wellington 84 19 22.6

Distance 457 220 48.1

Table 1: Number of students who visited the walkthrough exercise according to

mode and campus

Manawatu and

Distance

Albany and Wellington

Visit, GPA and

Assignment mark

Table 2: Mean assignment mark and GPA of students grouped according to walkthrough

visit and interaction

Score Didn’t visit the

walkthrough

(n=454)

Visited the

walkthrough

(n=437)

Completed

all questions

(n=152)

Seriously

attempted all

questions

(n=45)

Assignment 61.3 64.1 67.0 67.5

GPA 2.9 3.8 4.6 5.2

Note: Students who did not submit an assignment were excluded from this analysis

• Number of questions attempted versus assignment mark

(r=0.16)

• Number of questions attempted versus GPA (r=0.28)

• Statistically significant (p=0.00) but very weak

Correlations

Student satisfaction

survey

• Positive

– “I felt it was well constructed and directly related to the

assignment”

– “…did appreciate the points of consideration that I may not have

raised, to think about other perspectives of ethical issues”

– “..excellent tool, I found it helpful to structure my essay and make

sure I answered all the key areas”

– “helped me focus on how to approach the assignment…”

• Negative

– “Took too long”

– „Complete and utter rubbish!” (one student)

Comments

• Walkthrough was helpful and motivating to a number of

students

• Engagement decreased as students worked through

scenario and not just with the poorer performing

students.

– “Point and click” generation?

– Walkthrough too long?

• Lecture support and promotion makes a large difference

to whether or not these “assignment walkthroughs” are

used.

Discussion

• Worth doing but a standard framework for their use

needs to be developed and applied by all lectures

• Might be better in “bite-sized” chunks?

• May have more impact if they are compulsory and

assessable (possibly integrated into the assignment

itself)

Things we learnt

The End