are formative-exercises-taken-seriously-stewart-and-ang-slides
TRANSCRIPT
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
• 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
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
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
• 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