ENHANCING ASSESSMENT IN THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES  

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Introduction

The central role of feedback in student learning is well recognised. Students use feedback to address the following questions:

• How well have I performed?
• In what areas am I doing well, and where might I improve?
• How might I improve?

A grade alone is rarely sufficient. Grades and scores can answer the first question, as they provide a measure of performance. And these are necessary, as measurement is one of the purposes of assessment [see also: Principles of assessment]. However, students also need opportunities to identify specific strengths and weaknesses, and insight into what they need to learn and how they might improve their performance on future tasks.

From exams you don't get your feedback - you do that exam, and it goes off, and it gets marked, and you get the mark back, and that's it. You're just relieved that you passed, or whatever, and that's it. So you don't actually find out, you know, what you did well in, what you didn't do so well in, unless you ask. [postgraduate student describing undergraduate examinations]

Assessment in the biological sciences is rarely confined to end-of-semester examinations, however. The staff and students we interviewed described a wide variety of assessment types [see also: Assessment types] and combinations [see also: Curriculum planning and review]. Courses typically include in-semester assessment tasks, and many of these are designed to provide students with specific feedback on their learning.

The feedback that you get after doing an assignment. Rather than just going, "Here's your assignment", handing it back, "That's your mark, bad luck for you", they actually actively do things, like they put the stuff up on the board so you can see how to improve ... [undergraduate student describing the type of feedback most valued]

We get feedback on some assignments and on most of our exams. So you can see what areas that you haven't been strong in and talk with your lecturer or just study harder for the next section. [honours students describing assessment in earlier year levels]

In addition, tutorials and practical classes provide opportunities for discussion with peers and staff, and are therefore important in providing feedback.

However, providing meaningful, individual feedback to large groups of students in a timely manner with limited resources remains one of the key issues facing academic staff.

If you're talking big classes, just the sheer time involved in giving individual students individual feedback on their performance is a great challenge [academic]

A decision was taken to spend one entire lab session giving students feedback on a draft report - a significant curriculum change given the size of the cohort (n= 1200 students and up to 50 staff). Each student has time (albeit only about 10 minutes) with a member of staff to talk about their completed draft report and get help on how to improve the final report. [Example: Taylor 2]

In addition, staff described the challenge of encouraging students to make good use of feedback comments.

...students tend to show much more interest in the grade than the feedback. Indeed, they often largely neglect the written feedback after they have determined their grade. [academic]

Staff and students interviewed for this project described a variety of ways in which assessment and feedback is used to enhance learning. The overview of trends, below, is followed by a list of some of the approaches taken, with links to specific examples. In addition, the feedback associated with particular assessment types is detailed elsewhere [see also: Assessment types]

Trends in providing feedback

A variety of approaches to providing feedback were recommended to us by the staff and students interviewed. These include:

• An increasing involvement of students in providing feedback to their peers [see also: Peer and self-assessment];
• Opportunities for students to receive progressive feedback on assessment tasks, including:
• group involvement in the early stages of project work; and
  
• feedback on drafts of written work.
• Widespread use of 'marking-sheets' or 'rubrics' for providing criterion-based feedback to students, particularly when:
• student groups are large; and
• numerous staff members are involved.
• A move away from large numbers of 'continuous' assessment tasks, to fewer, larger and more 'complex' tasks - particularly in later year subjects.

Enhancing assessment for feedback

Providing feedback on draft versions

Allowing students to refine their work by providing feedback on draft version encourages students to make use of the feedback offered, as the benefits are direct. That is, students can use the feedback to improve the quality, and so the grade, of the final work [Examples: Mulder 1; Taylor 2; Wassens 1].

... the mean grade for projects in the year after the implementation of the [feedback] program showed a statistically significant improvement (p=0.012). Thus, peer feedback has helped students to effect genuine improvement in the quality of their project reports. [Example: Mulder 1]

Making feedback more meaningful by separating it from grading

Two different approaches to the separation of feedback and grading were described to us. The first typically involves providing feedback, but no grade, on a draft version, and grading only the final work, often with little or no additional feedback. It is argued that this not only enables students to incorporate the feedback into the final work, and therefore to value it (as described above). It also enables staff to provide a different form of feedback, and this was described as a 'qualitatively different activity' by one academic. That is, the feedback is more in the form of constructive criticism, with recommendations for improvement - rather than justification of the loss of marks, which tends to be the case when grading [Examples: Mulder 1; Taylor 2].

The second approach involves withholding the grade for a time, to allow students to consider the feedback alone "When the two [grading and feedback] are provided together, students tend to show much more interest in the grade than the feedback" [Example: Mulder 4]. The intention is to remove the 'emotional distraction' of the grade, encouraging reflection upon the comments before being given the grade. Note that this approach is not without its problems. Some students express frustration if grades are withheld in this way.

Using peer feedback to develop students' skills of self-assessment

In order to give feedback to others, students need to consider the criteria being applied, the standards expected, and the ways in which the work might be improved. This encourages them to assess their own work more critically. Students learn from considering and evaluating the work of others [Examples: Fairweather 1; Hancock 1; Quinnell 1; Mulder 1].

Many students comment that completing a structured, comprehensive review of other work is a revelatory way of helping them to identify areas requiring attention in their own report. [Example: Mulder 1]

... actually assessing others helps you realise what makes a good talk. So if you're up there and instead of just watching someone and knowing someone else is marking them, you're doing, "I didn't do that quite right. They're kind of talking at their feet. They're not making clear points." You're like, "That's something I should do in my talk." So I think it's a pretty good learning tool as well. [postgraduate student reflecting on undergraduate assessment that made a difference to their learning].

More efficient feedback through the use of templates and rubrics

These take various forms and go by various names - marking sheets, checklists, feedback summaries, rubrics. They are used for two purposes. First, they are used to describe expectations and may be designed to communicate with students and between staff involved in teaching teams. Second, such sheets may be used as a template for providing feedback. However, difficulties can arise when attempting to make one sheet serve both purposes and it is not uncommon to use sheets specifically designed for feedback, and to communicate expectations in another format.

When used to provide feedback, such rubrics can be valuable for identifying areas of strength and weakness. However, they are arguably less suited to providing suggestions for improvement [Examples: Cavanagh 2; Hancock 1; Macaulay; Mulder 3; Noble; Pane; Ross 3].

Using technology to provide self-quizzes with inbuilt feedback

Computer-based self-quizzes which provide immediate and relevant feedback, based on students' answers to multiple-choice or related questions, are widely used - particularly in first year subjects. Students value the opportunity to 'test themselves' and to practice for formal tests and examinations [Examples: Mrongovius 1; Peat 3; Plastow; Shapter] [see also: Online assessment; Tests and quizzes]

Providing recorded, verbal feedback on written work

A rather novel alternative to providing written feedback on written work involved audio recording feedback. This has the benefits of one-to-one oral feedback in that it is personal and individual, while also providing students with a record of feedback that they can review and revisit. The person who described this rather unusual approach argues that, for staff, it has advantages over written feedback in that it is quicker and easier to prepare than written feedback [Example: Peat 4].

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