Providing students with assessment choices

Discipline Area

Organisational Behaviour; Management

Key assessment issue addressed

Online assessment of large classes of first-year undergraduates with choices based on their preferred learning styles to encourage students' motivation, retention and to improve success rates.

The initiative

Learners were provided with five different assessment options which had multiple-choice online assessment and/or written assignments, ranging from totally on-line to totally off-line. Online assessment varied from 15 minute short tests to one hour or two hour online tests. Student feedback was very positive that having choices gave them more incentive to perform well and gave them an opportunity to chose an assessment option which reflected their learning style.

The reason for the initiative's effectiveness

Student control of their assessment choices 'empowered' them and gave them incentives to not just pass the course but to achieve a good result for the unit. Learners with more sense of control over their learning outcomes reported greater motivation, incentive to perform and less inclination to withdraw from the course. The online environment permitted multiple assessment choices without any significant increases in teaching costs.

Further details

Terry Waters-Marsh
Senior Lecturer in Organisational Studies & HRM
Central Queensland University, Rockhampton Campus
t.waters-marsh@cqu.edu.au