Assessing individual achievement on group-based work

by

Nola Caffin
Food Science and Technology Group, School of Land and Food, The University of Queensland

 

 

Abstract

Problem based learning (PBL) requires assessment of the outcomes of group-based work. This paper reports on the assessment developed for a 1st year PBL subject called QF117 Nutrition and Food Science. The core activities of the subject were a number of problems and debates. Each student's performance in the debates was assessed and their activity portfolio, made up of their individual research on each problem, was marked on a regular basis. This enabled a student's individual performance to be assessed in these group-based activities. The final exam was based on the type of problems encountered through the semester giving students an opportunity to demonstrate skills gained in the subject.

 

Introduction

This year, the School of Land and Food in the Faculty of Natural Resources, Agriculture and Veterinary Science offered the Bachelor of Applied Science (Food Science and Nutrition) for the first time. This is a joint course with the Nutrition Program in the Faculty of Health Sciences. The course has a first year introductory subject called QF117 Nutrition and Food Science. Myself and another staff member from the Nutrition Program allocated to the subject have had considerable and positive experiences with problem based learning over a period of several years and decided to design the subject around a number of problems supported by activities such as debates. We felt that this approach would help students link and integrate subject material, improve the research skills of the students and provide them with a variety of learning experiences.

 

Designing the subject

Firstly the objectives for the subject were decided. These were both knowledge and skill based. The skills objectives related to the acquisition of problem solving, research and communication skills. Once the objectives were finalised, the problems were written to meet the objectives and the assessment then structured to assess these objectives.

To ensure that the knowledge objectives were covered by the problems, we constructed for each problem a list of possible learning goals for the problem together with the concepts that these would cover.

A grid was formed showing which problem met which objectives and which pieces of assessment were measuring the attainment of those objectives.

The subject was structured around 7 problems with additional activities. These additional activities included a library skills session (run by a librarian from Biological Sciences library), debates, short explanatory lectures, videos, a guest lecture from a dietitian and hands on activities such as estimating food portion sizes and doing a 24 hour food intake record.

 

Organisation of the subject

The subject was timetabled for 4 hours per week and was run in two sessions of 2 hours on consecutive days.

There were around 50 students enrolled and they were organised into 6 groups of between 7 and 9. Groups were self-selected to maximise cooperation within the group. Students remained in these groups for the semester.

Around 8 was an effective group size as it meant that a problem could be explored more widely than with a smaller group. This became more evident as the semester wore on and a couple of the groups decreased to 5 or 6. This put more pressure on the group members, each having to do more work to cover the learning issues raised by the problem.

With only two staff or facilitators in the room some of the groups worked independently for part of the class time. However each group could elect a leader for each new problem as well as a scribe. The role of this leader was to check off attendance of group members and generally oversee the operation of the group. The scribe recorded learning issues for the problem and allocation of tasks to individuals. Some groups used a leader, other groups seemed happy to work without one.

 

Subject Content

Problems
At the beginning of the semester the class was introduced to the concept of problem based learning. They were also given a library skills session since the researching of information is critical to the success of problem based learning.

The problem was handed out to the class. Each group brainstormed the problem and decided on the learning goals for the group which would enable them to better understand the problem. The two staff assisted the students where required. We tried not to interfere too much in the brainstorming process because we wanted the students to generate their own learning goals. We listened and assisted if the group ran short of ideas or if we felt that they were missing vital points.

The learning goals were then allocated to each member of the group. After two weeks group members reported back individually to their group on their assigned tasks.

The reporting back consisted of an oral report of about 5 minutes from each member of the group supported by a written handout of not more than 2 A4 pages back to back. This was distributed to all members within the group. The two staff circulated between groups and listened and participated where appropriate. This was usually followed by a class discussion and/or a video and/or short summary lecture on one of more of the topics covered by the problem. Sometimes the reporting back format was varied. In two instances each group prepared 2 or 3 overheads summarising the research on their learning goals and one or more members of the each group used these to report to the whole class. This was followed by comments by the staff and class discussion.

An individual's written reports formed their activity portfolio, a major part of the assessment. These reports plus those from other members of the group are also to be used to revise for the final exam.

Debates
Activities such as debates were held in the weeks between the allocation of learning tasks and the reporting back sessions. Students were given assistance on debating skills using appropriate videos. Each student participated in one debate.

 

Assessment

Students are assessed on:

To pass the subject students are required to pass the activity portfolio and the final exam and achieve a pass overall. Each piece of assessment is given a grade according to the criteria for it. These grades are used to calculate the final grade for the subject.

Weighting of grades are as follows:

Class attendance and participation 0.5
Activity Portfolio 1.5
Debate 1.0
Final exam 2.0

 

Class attendance and participation
It was necessary to attend not less than 80% of class sessions to achieve a pass in the subject, a medical certificate or other approved documentation being required for additional absences. One of the main characteristics of this subject is that it is group-based. Therefore a high rate of attendance is critical to the success of the subject. If members of a group didn't turn up or arrived late it imposed an additional burden on groups. Learning goals were allocated in their absence and the student then had to be contacted about this. Students tended to stretch the participation requirement a bit by arriving late and leaving early. However generally attendance was satisfactory.

Activity portfolio
As mentioned above the activity portfolio is a record of the work done for the problems and other activities in the subject. Originally we were only going to mark 3 problems throughout the semester on weeks to be chosen at random. We marked one problem early in the semester to give feedback. This grade was not counted in the assessment. Students generally had difficulty accepting that not all their work would be marked and in the end we graded 4 problems, thus marking 5 out of the 7 problems.

Debates
As mentioned, each student participated in one debate. The number of students in the class meant that we had 6 debates of 4 per side throughout the semester. Despite the fact that there were a number of students in the class with inadequacies in English communication skills the debates were generally a success.

Final exam
The final exam was set as limited open book exam. The exam consists of a number of problems about which questions were asked and designed to test the students ability to apply the skills acquired during the subject. Students were able to refer to their textbook to answer the questions. There was choice given and plenty of time to answer the questions. However it was clear that many students did not purchase the textbook until close to the exam. The standard of many answers indicated a poor familarity with the textbook.

Overview of assessment
Although the subject was group based, all assessment was based on the students own efforts. The students that put in the effort got the most rewards.

Such an assessment scheme overcomes many of the difficulties associated with peer assessment often used in group-based work. It did not entirely overcome the problem of students not pulling weight. The performance of the group still had some influence on the performance of an individual student.

 

Student reactions

A staff member from TEDI carried out a nominal group assessment at the end of the semester. This was done with a group of about 12-14 students, 2 representatives from each group.

The good (and important) points were seen as follows:

Areas seen as needing improvement were:

It was interesting to see how important the social aspects of the subject were to the students. In first semester these students were in large classes such as Chemistry, Cell Biology and so on. A number of the students said that they didn't know who the other students were that were doing their course until they did QF117.

Some of the issues surrounding a new course tended to become mixed in with the subject evaluation.

 

Conclusions

Some of the difficulties encountered in this subject were due to lack of staff so that students had to work working independently in tutorless groups. This is quite a lot to expect from first year students. Nonetheless the group based nature of the subject had a lot of advantages and overall the assessment and the subject seemed to work.

 

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