What was the impact of mandatory formative assessment on students’

learning experiences?

Claire Hopkins The Open Training College

Introductions

                           

         

The Supported Open Learning Model

Overview of this session Introductions Assessment – the journey and the debate Formative Assessment- best practice

guidelines Rationale for the College’s implementation of

mandatory formative assessments Thesis – catalyst and methodology Findings Evaluation

What is the one thing that influenced your studies?

“Assessment defines what students regard as important, how they spend their time and how they come to see themselves as individuals.”(Brown, 2001)

“Assessment is seen to exert a profound influence on student learning: on what students focus their attention on, on how much they study, on their quality of engagement with learning task, and through feedback, on their understanding and future learning.”(Gibbs and Simpson, 2004)

Assessment – the journey so far…

Period of Flux Movement away from traditional dominant

discourse: Teacher Centred…didactic content focused teaching…

The Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area

HETAC Assessment and Standards, 2009- Changing contexts now encourages innovation: due to

modularisation, plagiarism, learner retention, computer aided assessments, availability of study time and declining resources.

Dilemma: Challenges of student centredness

Summative (Judgement) vs Formative (Improvement)

Assessment of learning measures the achievements of learners and, by extension, the effectiveness of programmes and

Assessment for learning is the kernel of reflective teaching and learning and their continual quality enhancement (HETAC, 2009)

Formative Assessments: Any activity which creates feedback or feedforward to students about their learning achievements

F.A. will allow students to

Think about what it is they are trying to learn Try things out and learn from mistakes Think about what it is they want to learn Discuss subjects they don’t understand Take into account the possibility of different

interpretations and opinions Consider and reflect on their learning needs. (Irons, 2008)

11 Assessment Conditions that support students learning (Gibbs and Simpson, 2004)

7 Principles of Good Feedback

1: Clarify what good performance is 2: Facilitate the development of reflection and

self assessment in learning 3: Deliver high quality feedback to students – that

enable students to self –correct4: Encourages peer and teacher student dialogue

around learning 5: Encourage positive motivational beliefs and

self-esteem 6: Provide opportunities to act on feedback 7: Provide information to teachers that will help

them adapt to student needs. (Nicol and MacFarlane-Dick, 2006)

Prof David Nicol: Distils this to two Meta Principles

Catalyst for thesis David Boud

“At the end of the day what makes a difference is exactly what a student does and how they experience what they do; it is not the intention of the teacher that counts.”

Overview of Thesis

Qualitative - Seven semi-structured telephone interviews and a focus group with eight students

Thematic Analysis

OTC’s Mandatory Formative Activities Action Plan Email Online Discussions Telephone/Email Tutorial

The overall aims were to enhance the student's learning experience with structured engagement, provide useful and timely feedback and ultimately improve academic and professional performance.

Penalty – 10%

Findings’ Themes

Benefits of structured engagement Experiences of dialogue/feedback via tutorials

and online peer discussions How students’ perceptions influenced

engagement in formative assessments.

Benefits of Structured Engagement

1: Kick Start “it helps you start your assignment earlier

and you have to read through the module to ask any questions”.

“you could tend to sit there and do nothing…leave it a week or two..encourages you to get going a bit straight away”

2: Utilisation of supports not used previously

Experiences of dialogue/feedback

Online Dialogue with Peers

How perceptions influenced engagement 3 First Impressions: “Oh No!” “Complete

waste of time” Initial resistance that was alleviated once

benefits were experienced. Penalty not a motivator – “do not think about it. It would be more, I am doing this because I know this helps and I know that I can understand now the advantages of me doing this.”

Stoical: “ you just have to do it, that’s all”

Needs to be mandatory! I couldn’t see them working ... For the

simple reason you would get lax and say I will do it and it would end up you wouldn’t. Where I don’t think it a matter of fear of people losing points or whatever. I just think it’s a way of shaking you up to do them. Not shaking you up, that’s the wrong word, motivating you”

Challenges Excessive Workload ‘enough to be doing with the assignments’ Complete online postings asap to ‘get them over

and done with’ Learning styles Preference of more ‘real’ contact via the

telephone tutorial – tokenistic/surface in relation to action plan emails and online discussions. ‘bare mininum’

Prefer choice in method of engagement with College supports

3 stated that they were “selfish” prefer to do their ‘own thing’

Relevance of Structured Engagement? 2 students found the imposed structure

irrelevant and unhelpful as they had pre-existing abilities to manage their studies

Insight into how student perceptions influenced engagement…Prosser and Trigwell’s ‘deep’, ‘surface’ and ‘strategic’

Balancing structure and control

Challenge inherit in the move towards student centredness.

Did we undermine student’s sense of control?

Rowntree (1997) ‘instrument of coercion’ Sadler (1989) ‘mould’ student behaviour

for more effective learning in order to ‘shape and improve’ their competencies.

Penalty Internalise the assessment rationale and

make it their own.

7 Principles of Good Feedback

1: Clarify what good performance is 2: Facilitate the development of reflection and self

assessment in learning 3: Deliver high quality feedback to students – that

enable students to self –correct 4: Encourages peer and teacher student dialogue

around learning 5: Encourage positive motivational beliefs and self-

esteem 6: Provide opportunities to act on feedback 7: Provide information to teachers that will help

them adapt student needs. (Nicol and MacFarlane-Dick, 2006)

Evaluation

Provided a very good insight into how the students were progressing through the modules.

Determining the pace/goalposts was deemed beneficial/hindering depending on students’ preexisting abilities to manage their studies, their learning preferences.

Penalty - Value base as adult educators Carrot not the stick!

Thank you for listening!