Page 259 - DEDU504_EDUCATIONAL_MEASUREMENT_AND_EVALUATION_ENGLISH

Unit 22 : Continuous Assessment

scale but infrequent ones. Experience indicates that giving students more feedback results Notes
in faster learning and less confusion.
• Vigilance will be needed to ensure that plagiarism and other forms of cheating do not go
undetected. Make clear to students that a very serious view will be taken of such offences.
Point out that it is not only dishonest but short-sighted to abuse the important learning
experience involved in preparing an assignment. As a countercheck, arrange for some of
the assignments to be done and completed in class.
Projects/term papers
• Pros
They provide a measure of the student’s ability to :
• collect, select and use data/information;
• undertake independent study and enquiry;
• plan and follow through a fairly large-scaled piece of work;
• integrate theory and practice;
• work with others, when the exercise involves teamwork.
• Cons and possible solutions
• It is difficult to ensure parity in the projects. Careful coordination in the setting of topics
is important.
• Project work may lead to over-involvement at the expense of other aspects of the course.
Tutors/supervisors should therefore guide students in defining tasks and in being selective
with regards to content.
• It may be difficult to maintain consistency and fairness in marking across a range of
projects/papers. To mitigate this, project objectives should be clearly identified and some
broad criteria for assessment set. Wherever possible, two examiners should be used.
• Students may receive unequal supervision and this may affect the quality of the completed
project. Agreement should be made among tutors/supervisors to standardise the degree
of direction and guidance to be given to students. Criteria for evaluation should be
available to students in advance as these provide direction.
• It may be difficult to assign individual marks to students working in a group project, but
this may be resolved by orally examining each student to establish their knowledge of
the subject and the degree of his/her contribution. Alternatively, have students work on
projects individually.
Practical work
• Pros
It provides a measure of :
• ability to relate theory to practice;
• students’ techniques, procedures and practical skills.
• Cons and possible solutions
• The contribution to a student’s final grade is low in relation to the amount of work
involved. To give it due value, emphasise its importance as a learning process.
• Too much emphasis may be given to the written report without sufficient consideration
to the actual process and performance. To avoid this, instructors should scrutinise practical
work closely and question students about their organisation of the work and their findings.

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