These are the inquiry questions I have been researching. I have been researching ways to assess students effectively and accurately without utilizing the traditional systems of schools.
1) How to create an inclusive discipline that streams away from traditionally exam based subjects? Is it beneficial to engage in more group work for students?
- this leads to perhaps group projects and/or group interactions leading to individual work
- group interaction promotes inquiry within the group and then this leads to a “cheat sheet” of fresh information which the student can then take and complete individual work based on their discussions
2) How can we assess students effectively and accurately without traditional exams and/or tests?
- Group projects are often tough to mark because students have various levels of knowledge, motivation, leadership, social-skills
3) How to get students to do the same level of work that they would individually in a group setting (intrinsic motivation)?
- Often times with group projects some students do more work than others, this can be reflected in the grade but how do you keep less motivated students engaged in the learning throughout this process
Articles Which Tackles These Problems
Bacon, D. R. (2005). The effect of group projects on content-related learning. Journal of Management Education, 29(2), 248-267.
This paper investigates the gaps which occur for content learning when content is taught through the use of a group project. It was found that students split up the work and did not understand all the aspects of the project at the end of the term. The study also highlighted evidence of social loafing, slacking, free riding and this led to the reduction of learning for some students.
Bakke, L., Kieke, M. C., & Krueger, R. (2013). Integrating biology & math in an inquiry-based student research project. American Biology Teacher, 75(6), 402-405.
This study talks about a way to have inquiry-based research projects that deals with biology and mathematics. In their example, they used a program called iWorx to collect data indicating a student’s heart rate and pulse. They know that heart rates increase and decrease, but in what cases does that happen? In their case, many students think caffeine does that, so all of them drank Coca Cola and measured their heart rates. Then they created a null & alternative hypotheses, and used the paired t-test to see if they should keep or reject the null hypothesis.
Bushell, G. (2006). Moderation of peer assessment in group projects. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 31(1), 91-108.
This study aimed to uncover the effects of group work on a group of students that included both high-achievers and low achievers. This study was done in Vietnam on a group of students, they discovered that by creating a mixed group with both high-achievers and low-achievers, the students at both ends were more engaged during the cooperative learning, such as group work, rather than a multiple-choice assessment. The study proposed a method for assessment that includes requiring students to share intellectual and material resources during group work.
Cheng, M. (2011). ‘Transforming the learner’ versus ‘passing the exam’: Understanding the gap between academic and student definitions of quality. Quality in Higher Education, 17(1), 3-17.
This paper uncovers the gap that exists when a student writes an exam merely for the grade versus for their learning and personal growth. It highlights the problems associated with traditional teaching, and how much value is given to the grade assigned rather than the achievement of learning. This paper also shows the problems with exam-based disciplines, which confine the student to the realms of grades rather than expanding and growing as a learner.
Gweon, G., Jun, S., Finger, S., & Rosé, C. P. (2017). Towards effective group work assessment: Even what you don’t see can bias you. International Journal of Technology and Design Education, 27(1), 165-180.
Conducting an accurate assessment is not an easy task. The author explains how in practice, instructors already exhibit cognitive biases and judgments made from using incomplete information. The author hypothesizes that instructors make human errors related to social psychology, the halo effect, the fundamental attribution error because they have a limited view of group work. The study contributes 2 things: insights of limitation of assessment practices, and using principles from social psychology as a lens for designing tools that help monitor group work.
Hannaford, L. (2017). Motivation in group assessment: A phenomenological approach to post-graduate group assessment. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 42(5), 823-836.
Group work is beneficial for improving collaborative learning, but lots of problems in summative assessments if students do not contribute equally. This article looks at the understanding of student perceptions of group work, and especially the motivation to overcome barriers in group work. Looking at this will help us lead to better assessment design and reduce dysfunctional behaviour. For motivation, they look at the expectancy-value theory.
Li, L. K. Y. (2001). Some refinements on peer assessment of group projects. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 26(1), 5-18.
This paper highlights the various methods that have been tested for measuring/assessing group work, and the individual contributions of students. An approach from Goldfinch is applied to the student sample in this study, and the problems, shortcomings and biases are explored. There are a variety of approaches professors/teachers can adapt to interpret the students assessments of their group members. This includes the fundamental peer assessment approach, subjectivity, the over-generous case, the creative accounting case, false precision and the normalisation procedure.
Maguire, S., & Edmondson, S. (2001). Student evaluation and assessment of group projects. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 25(2), 209-217.
This article focuses on students ability to work effectively in groups, and aims to discover how effectively they can provide reliable summative assessment of their own work. The study found that it is required to teach students group-management strategies and to take into consideration the “goals” of the individual students and how this affects the group dynamic. The study discovered that most students interviewed reported positive feelings when the group had the same goal in mind and achieved a full cycle of experiential learning.
Pitt, M. J. (2000). The application of games theory to group project assessment. Teaching in Higher Education, 5(2), 233-241.
This article talks about the problems of assessment in group projects. They find that group projects are educationally valuable, but very difficult to mark. Others in the group do not pull their weight, therefore leading most of the assessment of the project to be dependent on one person, rather than the group as a whole. Projects are not all about academic factors, but also psychological factors within a group. The author also explains group project as a “game”.
Stone, J. (01). Improving elementary american indian students’ math achievement with inquiry-based mathematics and games. Journal of American Indian Education, 51(1), 45; 45-66.
This study aims to close the achievement gap between Native American and non-Native students by using inquiry-based mathematics curricula, along with cognitively guided instructional strategies that are mostly at the elementary level. One of interesting techniques they used was treating math games as weekly homework. Also, most inquiry-based group interactions were student driven, and not teacher driven. Overall, the study showed that most students had improved test scores, and achievement gaps were overall closed slightly.
Woods-McConney, A., Wosnitza, M., & Sturrock, K. L. (2016). Inquiry and groups: Student interactions in cooperative inquiry-based science. International Journal of Science Education, 38(5), 842-860.
This research paper analyzes student interaction in cooperative inquiry based science activities, especially with students who had high-level group interactions. This study shows that even without scaffolding from teachers, or not having specific skills in knowing how to implement cooperative inquiry based science, high level group interactions of students can still occur very briefly.
Yu, H., & Li, H. (2014). Group-based formative assessment: A successful way to make summative assessment effective. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 4(4), 839.
This paper focuses on the differences between individual learning and group-based learning in a formative assessment. The study found that students who were exposed to the group where they engaged in group-based learning did significantly better than those who worked individually. It also highlights the importance of formative assessment and the bridge that should exist between teaching and assessment in order to enhance learning.