Overview | Aims | Process | Evaluation | Contact

Overview

Courses in the biological sciences at Adelaide University typically employ end-of-semester or end-of-year "barrier" examinations as the principal fail/pass assessment. The questions included in such examinations are commonly in the format of essays or written brief notes and students avidly access past examination papers in an attempt to predict likely questions for their assessment and accumulate the appropriate factual information.

The stress and time constraints of "barrier" examinations often divert the students into poorly constructed and poorly written answers with the intention of including all the factual information at their command in the time available; student reasoning and problem-solving abilities become secondary considerations. The sheer volume of examination scripts and the nature of the student answers often ensure that the examiners base their assessment mark principally on factual content. As such, the outcome of any attempts by the subject curriculum to address modern educational issues remains unknown.

In essence then, this method of assessment drives the student learning experience into a test of factual recall ability. The more educationally desirable outcomes of developing problem-solving strategies and skills in self-directed learning and the instillation of life-long learning practices are not addressed. This is the background of frustration which led to the implementation of a truly continuous assessment process in the third year science programme in Exercise Physiology where the driving principle was the promotion of developing just these skills.

Aims

• To use the assessment process to drive the learning experience.
• To use the assessment process to develop communication skills between students in the framework of factual recall.
• To use the assessment to develop problem-solving skills and lateral thinking in the students.
• To allow the students to provide a written example of reasoned argument in a more conducive atmosphere.

Process

The assessment is in 2 forms:

1. Four Multiple Choice Question (MCQ) papers each comprising 40 questions requiring 5 responses in each question. The 4 MCQ papers are at regular intervals in the semester each with a 2 week lead-in time for submission. They are open book and students have been encouraged to consult their colleagues. All questions can be answered using the Handbook with lecture synopses which has been provided for all students. Many of the questions are not straight-forward and require considerable research and discussion with colleagues to answer them. Handbooks of Review Articles in main subject areas are also provided for reference.
2. Four, one page written assignments designed to encourage lateral thinking and creative problem solving and where a didactic response is often inappropriate. Indeed, the one-page limit has been adopted to discourage students from regurgitating factual information in the hope that the examiner might find the answer contained within! The questions are structured to bring together the students' thoughts on broad-ranging issues with practical applications in mind. There are 4 assignments at regular intervals in the semester each with a 2 week lead-in time for submission. These responses provide the principal method for ranking students. All marked assignments have written comments and a model answer is provided.

Evaluation

Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) evaluation has been strongly positive. The vast majority of students agreed or strongly agreed that "The assigned work was valuable for my understanding of the subject" and that "The assigned work could be completed on time". The students' criticisms (primarily procedural) will be used to improve the course in the following year.

Contact
Dr. Garry Scroop can be contacted on:

Tel: +61 8 303 5331
Fax: +61 8 303 3356
E-mail: gscroop@physiol.adedaide.edu.au