Assessing process and product in a constructively aligned subject

Authentic assessment design in a highly scaffolded environment

Teaching Context

Educator’s name: Mr Paul Wiseman and Professor Michael Davern
Subject name: Sustainable Commerce (CMCE10001)
Discipline: Business and Economics
Faculty: Faculty of Business and Economics
Year level: Year 1 of the Bachelor of Commerce program (Discovery subject)
Class size: Approximately 1700 in Semester 1 and 600 in Semester 2
Mode of delivery: On-campus

Details of Assessment Redesign

Assessment Design

This subject includes the following assessment tasks:

AT1. Three online quizzes assessing content from the Joining Melbourne Modules (individual task, completed throughout semester, 10%)

AT2. Essay response to a prompt question (individual task, completed by Week 4, 10%)

AT3. Group activities (group task, 30%). This assessment comprises two related tasks:

Collaborative Perusall annotation task (completed by Week 6, 15%)
Group video task (completed by Week 8, 15%)

AT4. Report (individual task, completed by Week 12, 30%)

AT5. Reflective essay (individual task, completed during the examination period, 20%)

Aim of the Assessment Design

This subject was designed by Paul Wiseman and Professor Michael Davern to ensure strong constructive alignment between teaching and learning activities, assessment tasks and learning objectives.

Featured Assessment Strategies

This subject showcases five of the seven practical strategies for improving assessment design and integrity. More details of each of these strategies are provided below.

Shift the emphasis from assessing product to assessing process

There are several tasks that focus on assessing process in this subject. First, the reflective essay (AT5) asks students to reflect and write about their learning processes throughout the subject, including within the previous assessment tasks. Second, the collaborative Perusall annotation task (AT3a) awards one-fifth of the overall allocated marks for the task based on the amount of time students spend using Perusall (NB. to get full marks here, students need to spend at least 90 minutes on the task). Finally, AT2, AT4, and AT5 are all required to be completed in Cadmus, which provides automated feedback to students about academic integrity and writing processes.

Design nested or staged assessments

In this subject, AT2 to AT4 are nested because each one feeds forward into the next assignment, in terms of both content and process. The essay response assignment (AT2) is designed to further develop students’ conceptual understanding of sustainable commerce. Students are then able to draw upon the conceptual framework (i.e., sustainability in the organisation) and build a conceptual understanding of organisation-stakeholder relationships in the group activities (AT3). The conceptual understanding of organisation-stakeholder relationships then underpins the stakeholder analysis of a live case study organisation (AT4). In addition, AT2 is designed so that students receive feedback on their academic writing (i.e., synthesis and integration of theory), while AT3 is designed to extend conceptual understanding and provide a scaffold for the analytic work to be performed in AT4.

Diversify assessment formats

Within this subject, the assessment tasks incorporate a diverse range of modalities, including online quizzes (AT1), providing annotations on a bespoke document on stakeholders (AT3a), written tasks (AT2, AT4, AT5) and a video task (AT3b). In the video task, students work in their groups to perform a 3-to-5-minute parody video about the topic they explored in AT3a. This can take the form of a song, a skit, or an interview. Exemplars are provided (e.g., a Clarke & Dawe skit) to help students’ understanding of what is required in the task. Students are graded on their conceptual understanding rather than their performance.

Incorporate more authentic, context-specific or personal assignments

For the report task (AT4), students are required to prepare a business report based on a real-world case study. Developing a business report is an authentic task that Bachelor of Commerce graduates might be expected to perform as part of their future careers. In addition, the reflective task in AT5 helps students develop an understanding of the purpose and value in reflecting on their personal learning processes and enacting strategies to enable their future improvement.

Incorporate more in-class and group assignments

Students are required to complete two group tasks (AT3a, AT3b) that respectively focus on one component of the research process required for the major subject assessment piece (AT4). In addition, the tutorial series in this subject provides opportunities for students to complete micro-tasks that represent components of their assessment pieces (NB. these tasks are not assessed but build requisite skills for the assessed tasks).

Further Reading

For more information about the design of this subject, please refer to the Course Handbook (here).