Assessment activities Jeopardy Template

Text-based

Q and A

Complex or project-based

Practice

100

Literature Reviews

Advantages of Literature Reviews

Literature Reviews encourage deep learning, and provide an efficient way to assess students on their knowledge and understanding of a particular topic.
Literature Reviews assess different cognitive levels.
With proper supervision and practices, some graduate attributes such as project management and life-long learning can be learnt and assessed.
Literature Reviews give a conceptual framework for research or project planning because students can have a clear idea of what has already been done in the field. This helps students build up new research topics on the basis of existing literatures
Time and cost efficient to look for resources (e.g. through the online database)
Enhance analytical skills through identifying differences in previous work and their work

Disadvantages of Literature Reviews

Sometimes, students may not have access to certain information. They may spend unnecessary time and resources on searching for the reviews.
It is time consuming for the teachers to correct and provide feedback.
Literature reviews require good supervision from teachers particularly for students who are inexperienced in this type of assessment.

100

Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs)

Advantages of MCQs

Good MCQs are designed to be objective. They usually have one (or a few) definite answers that are given as choices for the students to select. Thus there will be no ambiguity in marking due to subjective factors in the questions. Objective MCQs are easy to mark (a set of answer sheets is all that is required from the assessor) and thus do not require experienced tutor to mark them.
MCQs take less time to complete, with shorter assessment time required, more questions can be assessed. Feedback is fast.
MCQs can be administered as on-line assessments, such online assessments can be very effective, and can prompt correct answers directly after completion with clarification and reasoning of the answers.
Factors irrelevant to the assessed material (such as handwriting and clarity of presentation) do not come into play in multiple choice assessments. (Wikipedia accessed 13 Jun 08)
MCQs have high reliability, validity and manageability.

Disadvantages of MCQs

MCQs are typically used for assessing knowledge only, students may often memorize MCQs with rote learning. If assessors wish to use MCQs to assess deeper learning, careful attention (and many practices) on appropriate questions are required.
MCQs are usually used as formative assessments during class. They have a reputation of being easy. Thus students tend to receive higher marks in comparison to other assessments such as essays, reports, and presentations etc., for which a "glass ceiling" of around the 80% mark are often incurred. Care must be taken to design MCQs which have the same level of difficulty as other assessments. Obviously, students are unlikely to complain if they receive high marks in a formative MCQ assessment, but for summative assessment, if a different assessment method is used (which is usually the case), then students should be given clear assessment procedures and expectations. It is advisable to give practices on other assessments if such assessments are used for summative assessment.
Guessing – with MCQs there is a possibility of guessing the correct answer, there are numerous methods to penalize students from guessing, such as negative marking (not recommended as sometimes produce negative effects to students who know the answers), more options to answers, adopting mathematical strategies to normalise marks, giving partial marks to an answer very near the correct answer.
MCQs cannot test oral or written skills, it can test only the theories.

100

Presentation

Advantages of Presentation

Humans tend to remember actions and behaviors easier than words through reading, writing and listening. Observing others peers presenting will help students reflect on oneself and avoid repeating others' mistakes. And at the same time, students can learn from others' good work.
Presentation is an effective method to improve students at public speaking.
Presentation is often part of the overall assessment for a research thesis, it helps to give detailed summary of the research project to the assessors and also allow the assessors to question the student with an immediate response at a more in-depth level which they may not find in the thesis report.

Disadvantages of Presentation

Presentation does not take a long time to mark but it does take relative amount of time for the students to present during contact hours, thus this is usually not the best method for a large class.
It is important for the assessors to state the assessment criteria explicitly, the students need to know if the content of the material is part of the criteria and/or the method of presenting is part of the criteria. If students are to be assessed on different aspects other than the content, they should be given the opportunity to learn about and practice those aspects before being assessed.
If the skills of live presentation are not relevant to the learning outcomes, presentation may not be a suitable assessment method.
Students may overspend their time on flashy animation, software and other high-tech sound effects, and not on the actual knowledge contents. Tutor and peer assessors may also be affected by these effects and overlook the meaningful ideas behind the topic.

100

Practical Experiment

Advantages of Practical Experiments

Allows students to demonstrate and practice their knowledge and skills of 'how to do something' in action, and to achieve the learning outcomes by themselves, which is not feasible through written assessments such as free- response questions or multiple-choice questions
Provides a powerful tool for teachers to objectively assess the competence of these manual skills of the students
Establishes the link between theories and practice; students can learn the scientific attitude of taking and analyzing data patiently and accurately; experiments do not replace textbooks and lectures, but enhance learning with practical experience
Practical experiments can be extended to become a hands-on experimental skills examination, to be coupled with brief instructions and interactive questions on theories

Disadvantages of Practical Experiments

It is time-consuming and costly to set up laboratory experiments and the necessary instrumentations along with adequate technical support; close supervision and help may be needed for students who lack confidence in doing practical experiments
For some experiments, it may not be feasible for the faculty to offer one set of equipments to each student; students will have to perform the experiment as a group, which may give rise to unfair distribution of work in the group
Teachers may find it difficult to develop uniform, fair, and reliable assessment rubrics to evaluate students' practical skills

200

Open-book Examination

Advantages of Open-book Examination

Less demanding on memory (regurgitation of memorized materials) because it is no longer necessary for students to cram a lot of facts, figures and numbers for open-book examination
Provides a chance for students to acquire the knowledge during the preparation process of gathering suitable learning materials rather than simply recalling or rewriting it
Enhances information retrieval skills of students through finding the efficient ways to get the necessary information and data from books and various resources
Enhances the comprehension and synthesizing skills of students because they need to reduce the content of books and other study materials into simple and handy notes for examination

Disadvantages of Open-book Examination

Difficult to ensure that all students are equally equipped regarding the books they bring into the exam with them, because the stocks of library books may be limited and also some books may be expensive to students
More desk space is needed for students during the examination because students often need lots of desk space for their textbooks, notes and other reference materials
Sometimes students may spend too much time on finding out which parts of the books to look for answers instead of applying the knowledge, practical skills and reasoning ability
A lot of students are unfamiliar with open-book examinations. They must be provided with clear procedures and rules.

200

Short Answer Questions

Advantages of Short Answer Questions

Short Answer Questions are relatively fast to mark and can be marked by different assessors, as long as the questions are set in such a way that all alternative answers can be considered by the assessors.
Short Answer Questions are also relatively easy to set compared to many assessment methods.
Short Answer Questions can be used as part of a formative and summative assessment, as the structure of short answer questions are very similar to examination questions, students are more familiar with the practice and feel less anxious.
Unlike MCQs, there is no guessing on answers, students must supply an answer.

Disadvantages of Short Answer Questions

Short Answer Questions (SAQ) are only suitable for questions that can be answered with short responses. It is very important that the assessor is very clear on the type of answers expected when setting the questions, because SAQ is an open-ended questions, students are free to answer any way they choose, short-answer questions can lead to difficulties in grading if the question is not worded carefully.
Short Answer Questions are typically used for assessing knowledge only, students may often memorize Short Answer Questions with rote learning. If assessors wish to use Short Answer Questions to assess deeper learning, careful attention (and many practices) on appropriate questions are required.
Accuracy of assessment may be influenced by handwriting/spelling skills
There can be time management issues when answering Short Answer Questions

200

Poster

Advantages of Posters

Poster assessment encourages creativity.
Poster assessment is short and succinct. This would require the students to think distinctively and select the important factors that need to be shown. The ability to summarize is important.
Poster assessment can be assessed by peers at different times even without the presence of the creator.

Disadvantages of Posters

It is important for the assessors to state the assessment criteria explicitly, the students need to know if the content of the material is part of the criteria and/or the method of presenting the poster is part of the criteria. If students are to be assessed on different aspects (such as creativity skills or presentation skills on the posters) other than the content, they should be given the opportunity to learn about and practice those aspects before being assessed.
Students may overspend their time on the visual effects, and not on the actual content. Tutor and peer assessors may also be affected by these effects and overlook the meaningful ideas behind the topic.

200

Direct Observation

Advantages of Direct Observation

Observation may sometimes be the only assessment method possible.
There can be no plagiarism or false reports.
It is a great way to assess practical skills.

Disadvantages of Direct Observation

Direct observation does not assess the higher-order levels of learning outcomes, and is often not adequate for a full assessment; oral questioning or other supplementary assessments may be required.
Direct observation assessment requires a lot of time to assess and to prepare thus, it is an expensive way of assessing.
The presence of the observer can change student's performance as being watched can be intimidating for many students. Furthermore, the dynamics of the observation room may change as the observer/assessor enters. It is often debatable whether the observer/assessor should be visible or hidden. So where, who and how the observation is being assessed are all factors which may affect a good observation assessment.
There is no anonymity in Direct Observation.
To ensure high efficiency and reliability, clear grading standards for all parties are essential. However, grading criteria for observation assessment can be trivial to design and develop.
Immediate feedback is useful, but sometimes that is difficult due to time constraints.
Practical work is usually ephemeral and dissenting views may later be contested if notes or recordings are not documented clearly.
It can sometimes be subjective.

300

Case Study

Advantages of Case Study

An opportunity to apply the theoretical concepts to a real-life scenario
Encourage active and group learning
Develop generic skills such as decision making, problem solving and collaboration skills
The mimic of real-life scenario may enhance studentsï¿½ engagement to the subject
Stimulate students to carry out independent research outside the classroom
Practice time management because students need to discuss and decide how to best carry out the work in class

Disadvantages of Case Study

Some teachers may be reluctant to change to this new teaching modules (prefer talk and chalk approach)
Time consuming to look for or create a case
Students may be unfamiliar with this teaching and learning approach, teachers may need to take some time to explain the instructions
Quieter students may find this approach challenging because they may have to work with other students

300

Debate

Advantages of Debate

Allow students to look at both sides of an issue
Improve students' communication and expression skills in a public setting
Enhance techniques of searching information
Improve skills for gathering, evaluating and synthesizing data from various sources in order to develop arguments
Foster appreciation of opposing viewpoints
Enhance debating/arguing techniques against opposing opinions
Allow more interactive exchange among students and teachers

Disadvantages of Debate

Students may not be familiar with debates as an assessment method
Debates are time-consuming (e.g. time for research and preparation, time for presentation of each group)
Students who do not like public speaking would be less motivated in participating

300

Portfolio

Advantages of Portfolio

Portfolio is an assessment method which gives students the opportunity to be responsible for their own learning. Students often develop a proud ownership of their work.
The self-reflection in each step allows students to improve as they see themselves progressing over time at the different stages.
Portfolio is an authentic assessment method, it determines meaningful work and often has personal relevance.
It promotes diversity of assessment methods.
It encourages motivation due to the visibility of the final portfolio.
It promotes creativity, individuality and uniqueness in the assessment of learning.
It assesses all levels of Bloom's taxonomy.
It shifts teacher's focus from comparative ranking to improving understanding via feedback.
Learning should not be all about the end result, portfolio is one of those assessment methods which allow students to demonstrate more than the end result - a process orientated method.
High validity.

Disadvantages of Portfolio

Portfolio is a very time-consuming assessment method in terms of planning, responding, correcting and providing feedback.
Clear instructions and guidelines must be given to students, as often students take portfolio as a collection of their work only with no justification on reasoning and reflective statements. A sample or defined portfolio size should also be given.
Plagiarism can occur.
It is a subjective assessment method and teachers sometimes find it difficult to assess, as it is difficult to measure reliability.
Students may overspend their time on the presentation of the portfolio, and not on the actual content. Tutor and peer assessors may also be affected by these effects and overlook the meaningful ideas behind the topic.

400

Essay

Advantages of Essay Assessment

Essays have the ability to assess all levels of learning objectives.
It encourages original and creative thinking.

Disadvantages of Essay Assessment

Due to the subjective nature of essay assessments, grading is very unreliable even for the same assessor at different periods.
Grading may be influenced by other factors such as handwriting and length of response.
As essays are very time-consuming to answer and to correct, they are not recommended if only low-level of learning outcomes are assessed which can be assessed by multiple choices or short answer questions.
Although guessing is not possible in essay assessments, but ï¿½bluffingï¿½ is.
It is also not advisable to give the topic of the essay to the students at an early date. This may give rise to superficial learning where students concentrate all their efforts in completing the essay only.

400

Oral Assessment

Advantages of Oral Assessment

There can be no plagiarism or false reports.
Assessors receive immediate reactions and responses.
It complements perfectly with practical assessments.

Disadvantages of Oral Assessment

Oral assessment is very time-consuming, it is an expensive way of assessing.
Validity is high but reliability is not. Clear assessment criteria and grading are required for all parties so that students and assessors are fully aware of how the performance will be judged to increase reliability.
There are rarely any clear guidelines about what is fair to judge at a viva. There have been some contentious cases that the assessor has rejected (?) or even failed a dissertation because the assessor is unwilling to accept the results of a candidate due to difference in opinions. Although there will be examiners' reports, there is rarely any record of the process itself to ensure its fairness.
Oral assessment may present significant difficulties for international students or students with certain impairments, who may require access to an alternative type of assessment that provides an acceptable test of learning outcomes. Students with some other impairments may be able to undertake oral assessment but may require some adjustments in order to have an equal footing.
Immediate feedback is useful, but sometimes that is difficult due to time constraints.
Oral assessment is usually ephemeral, and dissenting views may later be contested if notes or recordings are not documented clearly.

400

Reflective Journal

Advantages of Reflective Journal

Active learning - The process of reflection encourages the students to take the initiative to be active, self-driven; allows individual learner to explore concepts and ideas in relation to their thoughts and feelings from different perspectives. Students can become independent thinkers through the practice and to enable themselves to solve various problems on their own.
Understanding the progress of students - Reflective journals provide good opportunities for teachers to gain better understanding about how the students think and feel about the course, and the learning progress of the students throughout the course, which will eventually enhance the students' learning process.
Improving writing skills - Writing reflective journals can involve students in a new form of writing which they may not have a chance to experience in the past. This exposure can bring out improvement in students' writing skills.
Freely expressing personal views and criticizing of one-self - Reflective journal assignments provide the platform for students to freely express what they think and feel about the course and their learning process, and also promote their expression of ideas, personal experiences and opinions. This is an ideal place for students who are generally not willing to speak up in the classes and tutorials to express themselves.
Enhance critical thinking and creativity - The process of self-reflection enhances the development of critical thinking skills among students when they relate their knowledge to real world issues. It It can help students develop their creativity and a questioning attitude towards different issues and problems.

Disadvantages of Reflective Journal

Difficult for objective marking - Due to the subjective nature of reflective assignments, it is rather difficult for assessors to be objective and have consistent grading. Different assessors when marking may have quite a large discrepancy in their judgment of different types of work.
Time consuming for grading - The context of reflective writing can often be very wide, and involves a wide range of concepts, issues, and perspectives. As a result, it often takes considerable amount of time for assessors to read and grade students' works.
Confidentiality - As students have to disclose their personal and private views and information in their reflection, some of them may be unwilling to honestly disclose their real perspectives. They may be concerned that what they wrote will significantly affect the grade they receive.
Clear guidelines needed - Many students may not be familiar with the procedure of writing reflective assignments and may feel very lost when working on it for the first time. Teachers have to give clear guidelines to students about what should be included in the reflective journals, what can be learnt from writing it, as well as how they will be graded.