Discipline Area
Accounting
Key assessment issue addressed
Ensuring students
focused on
appropriate tasks required in essay writing assessment
items that require higher order learning outcomes (i.e. analytical/problem
solving skills) rather than simple description /summary of readings.
This was that done by changing students' conceptions of what the
task required.
The initiative
The key points of the initiative were twofold:
-
To ensure students correctly conceptualized
that the task required development of higher order learning
skills by:
-
Providing detailed and explicit performance
criteria, based on a conceptual (not topic specific)
tasks and providing relative weightings for these. The
4 criteria were:
Factual content - 30%
Comprehension and argument - 45%
Personal input, originality and insight - 15%
Writing and presentation -10%
- Providing standards for gradings to students .
These standards explained the level of achievement required
in each of the conceptual tasks to attain a specific grade
(e.g.pass/ distinction). For example:
For a grade of Pass 1 (55% - 64%)
Overall, your paper satisfies the requirements and identifies
and explains the key issues in the debate. It demonstrates
an ability to analyse and present a logical argument; however
there may be some flaws in logic or the argument may be
incomplete. There is little demonstration of independence
of thought.
-
To motivate students to appreciate the importance
of skills being developed in tasks by:
-
Linking and incorporating learning objectives
to the specific assessment item by explaining how specific
graduate (generic) qualities will be developed via this
assignment: eg
-
Incorporating requirements in assessment
for students to reflect upon the development of these
skills. Students were required to outline in a brief statement
how the process of preparing the assignment had developed
specific graduate qualities.
The reason for the initiative's effectiveness
The outcome was a significant improvement in student performance
(both in quantitative aspects - such as pass rate/averages,
and in qualitative - attitudes of students/quality of papers).
Reasons for effectiveness:
-
Clarified requirements of assessment task,
so students clearly understood the nature of the task and
importance of specific activities (such as analysis)
-
Students understood relevance/importance of
skills being developed (via linkages to profession/graduate
qualities and reflective statement).
Further details
Sue McGowan
and David Rivett
School of Accounting and Information Systems
University of South Australia
sue.mcgowan@unisa.edu.au
david.rivett@unisa.edu.au
