Facilitating staff and student engagement with graduate attribute development, assessment and standards in business faculties

Executive Summary The aim of the project was to promote and support strategic change in advancing graduate attribute development in Business education through engagement of staff and students with learning and assessment processes that embed graduate attribute development. The focus on graduate attributes currently is of upmost importance as Australian Business schools obtain, or seek to attain, international accreditation such as AACSB (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business). The quality assurance process of AACSB requires each degree program1 to specify learning goals, and demonstrate a student\u27s achievement of these learning goals. The participating institutions had all achieved initial AACSB accreditation and were in the maintenance of accreditation process. This situation was crucial in the project initiation and provided a platform for driving forward the process at a strategic level as well as being a prime motivator in the engagement of academic staff with the project objectives. Attribution: Support for the original work was provided by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council Ltd, an initiative of the Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations

Does student engagement in self-assessment calibrate their judgement over time?

One of the implicit aims of higher education is to enable students to become better judges of their own work. This paper examines whether students who voluntarily engage in self-assessment improve in their capacity to make those judgements. The study utilises data from a web-based marking system that provides students with the opportunity to assess themselves on each criterion for each assessment task throughout a programme of study. Student marks were compared with those from tutors to plot changes over time. The findings suggest that overall students judgements do converge with those of tutors, but that there is considerable variation across achievement levels, with weaker students showing little improvement. Whilst the study is limited by the exigencies of voluntary participation and thus consequential gaps in the data set, it shows how judgement over time can be demonstrated and points to the potential for more systematic interventions to improve students judgements. It also illustrates the use of the web-based marking and feedback software (ReView) that has considerable utility in aiding self-assessment research

The calibration of student judgement through self-assessment: disruptive effects of assessment patterns

Abstract Can extended opportunities for self-assessment over time help students develop the capacity to make better judgements about their work? Using evidence gathered through students' voluntary self-assessment of their performance with respect to assessment tasks in two different disciplines at two Australian universities, the paper focuses on the effects of sequences of units of study and the use of different types of assessment task (written, oral, analysis, project) in the development of student judgement. Convergence between student criteria-based gradings of their own performance in units of study and those allocated by tutors was analysed to explore the calibration of students' judgement over time. First it seeks to replicate analyses from an earlier smaller-scale study to confirm that students' judgements can be calibrated through continuing opportunities for self-assessment and feedback. Second, it extends the analysis to coherently designed sequences of units of study and explores the effects of different types of assessment. It finds that disruptive patterns of assessment within a sequence of subjects can reduce convergence between student and tutor judgements. Keywords -Self-assessment, judgement, assessment, student learning. There are many attributes that higher education courses seek to develop in students. These are normally well articulated in course aims and learning outcomes. However, there are attributes that are foundational to all discipline-specific outcomes. One of the most central is the ability of students to make effective judgements about their own work. Without such ability students will not be effective learners-how can they judge whether the study they are doing is appropriate? -Nor as graduates will they be able to function effectively in the workplace-how will they b

The calibration of student judgement through self-assessment: disruptive effects of assessment patterns

Can extended opportunities for self-assessment over time help students develop the capacity to make better judgements about their work? Using evidence gathered through students\u27 voluntary self-assessment of their performance with respect to assessment tasks in two different disciplines at two Australian universities, the paper focuses on the effects of sequences of units of study and the use of different types of assessment task (written, oral, analysis, and project) in the development of student judgement. Convergence between student criteria-based gradings of their own performance in units of study and those allocated by tutors was analysed to explore the calibration of students\u27 judgement over time. First, it seeks to replicate analyses from an earlier smaller-scale study to confirm that students\u27 judgements can be calibrated through continuing opportunities for selfassessment and feedback. Second, it extends the analysis to coherently designed sequences of units of study and explores the effects of different types of assessment. It finds that disruptive patterns of assessment within a sequence of subjects can reduce convergence between student and tutor judgements