ENHANCING ASSESSMENT IN THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES  

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Assessment practices are significantly enhanced when student assessment is viewed, and reviewed, in the context of the wider biological sciences curriculum. Students benefit enormously from a coherent and integrated approach to planning and reviewing assessment activities within and across year levels. To achieve such coherence, it is essential to look at the student experience in the discipline through the curriculum lens. This may occur in several ways.

Course mapping

What is it?

At the macro level, it is worthwhile to take account of the big picture curriculum experiences designed for students at the program level. This means knowing the key content areas being covered in other subjects that students are taking, both within a single year level, and in subsequent years.

Course mapping identifies progressions, such as the following, that describes one university's approach to first year biochemistry:

Students learn basic principles early in the course, e.g., acids and bases, amino acids. Then they are examined in a mid-semester test. This forces students to study the principles early so that they can build on them for the rest of the course. [academic]

Why do it?

With respect to assessment in the curriculum, course mapping provides a picture of the types of assessment tasks required of students in other subjects and in subsequent year levels and so makes possible a more coordinated approach to designing assessment tasks.

One academic said: "we've been over-assessing compared to other units. So we've had to pull back on that."

In order to decide how to streamline the assessment this interviewee gave the following advice: " you look at what other units these students are doing and pull back where there's duplication of, say, a genre of writing".

How do you do it?

Effective course mapping requires that academic colleagues work together, preferably at department or faculty level, and have a staged approach to the mapping process.

Further tips are included below.

What are the challenges?

An obvious challenge to course mapping is the complexity of students' program structure. One academic commented: "In science and biology it's a bit more difficult because students go off in all sorts of directions. We don't have them all in one program". This can make it difficult to ensure coherence in students' learning and assessment experiences at the program level.

Developmental approaches to assessment

Several interviewees noted that, as students progress through their degree program in the biological sciences, "there is a gradual increase in the level of writing skills expected". [academic]

In order to monitor this 'gradual increase', it is important to coordinate assessment activities and requirements at each year level.

One academic plans a gradual progression in the complexity of assessment tasks throughout the unit:

The assessment for this unit consists of four individual assignments with each assignment sequentially adding a specific knowledge and skill set needed to complete the final major project. ... This sequential development of assessment allows students to gain a rich understanding of how to tackle a big project and the steps necessary to understand the issues involved from the bottom up. [Example: Cooke 1]

Another academic scaffolds students' ability to design experiments:

One lab is complicated and fairly prescriptive. And then we say, okay, for the second week we want you to take one aspect of it and design an experiment to explore that further. And we found that very successful because it's not as daunting as trying to design an experiment from scratch. Students then write a report or give an oral presentation that we assess. [academic]

Students should be made aware of the developmental nature of their learning and the progression in depth and types of skills required so that they understand their learning in context.

Reflecting on the undergraduate years in biology, a postgraduate student described the development of the program as follows:

1st year gives you an idea of what subjects you might do later. 2nd year theories appear definite, but by 3rd year you know there are no right answers. 3rd year requires critical analysis of papers and articles; how to look things up. [postgraduate student]

Coherence at the subject level

At the subject level, student learning is enhanced when there is coherence between students' learning and assessment experiences in lectures, tutorials, laboratory work and other activities, such as field trips.

One academic noted: "You can't just tell students the links, you have to demonstrate them" .

A university that has recently restructured its first year program has " redevelop[ed] laboratory sessions to link with current lecture content, and to increase the investigative nature of practicals to ensure that students have an opportunity to have a more 'hands on' role in experimental design." [Example: Wood 2]

Several academics indicated that their assessment activities are designed to be done in a linked sequence. For example, a group discussion might lead on to an individual essay, which might be presented as a poster session [Example: Walker 1]. A group of postgraduate students recalled enjoying an exercise in which they were required to design their own project for a specific plant species, which involved tracking populations, collecting data, researching extra literature and taking photographs. The exercise culminated in a short presentation to a tutorial group of about 20 other students. They found this a positive, memorable experience [Example: Postgrads 1].

[see also Examples: Cooke 1; Cooke 3; Benkendorff 1; Taylor 4; Wassens 2]

Tips for responsive curriculum planning and review activities

We have found that it is useful to:

• Talk to colleagues both within and beyond the school/department. Identify common curriculum issues, share ideas and strategies;
• Arrange for professional development sessions to learn more about how to improve assessment and curriculum design practices;
• Organise teams and sub-teams to work together on coordinated curriculum planning and review activities;
• Where possible, join a committee at the department or institutional level to raise the need for a coherent approach to assessment as part of responsible curriculum planning and review processes; and
• Aim to develop policies that support coherent curriculum planning and review in our department or faculty, and across the university. It is usually necessary to start small, but the best way to ensure a coherent approach to curriculum planning is to start with a supportive policy that has been designed as the result of collegial consultation.

We talked with staff at one university that had decided to set up a committee to review the curriculum in its new degree course. Committee members are interviewing every staff member who is teaching in the new degree program and are documenting the topics and generic skills that are taught at each level. They want to make sure that there are not duplications or significant gaps. If anomalies or duplications arise, they intend to bring small groups/pairs of staff together to talk through the problems and resolve them. The reviewers are also asking staff questions about student assessment to ensure that there is a variety and a progression of assessment tasks, and a spread of assessment submission dates for each year level. The university anticipates that, when the information they have gathered is shared and discussed, it will lead to a more coherent and integrated curriculum for the benefit of both students and staff.

Other resources:

Guide for Reviewing Assessment - developed for the University of Melbourne as a framework for use by staff involved in the review of assessment at the level of courses and programs. Kerri-Lee Harris. Centre for the Study of Higher Education, The University of Melbourne.

 

To reference material from this site, please use:

Harris, K-L., Krause, K., Gleeson, D., Peat, M., Taylor, C. & Garnett, R. (2007). Enhancing Assessment in the Biological Sciences: Ideas and resources for university educators. Available at: www.bioassess.edu.au