New Mexico Higher Education Assessment and Retention

Conference

Albuquerque, New Mexico March 1, 2013

Involving students in the assessment process: Exploring students’ meanings of

the learning experience.

Mariam AbdelmalakDoctoral Candidate,

Curriculum & Instruction department, College of

Education, New Mexico State University-Las Cruces

Theoretical Background:• Critical pedagogy:• Paulo Freire (1993): “Banking” approach;

student-teacher partnership • Ira Shor (1992; 1996): Mutual faculty-student

authority • Stanley Aronowitz (1993): Student control

Theoretical Background:• Faculty/students collaboration in a way that gives

students some control over their learning (Dewey, 1938; Heron, 1979; Boud & Prosser, 1980; Freire, 1993; Shor, 1992; 1996; Manor, Bloch-Schulman, Flannery & Felten, 2010)

• Faculty absolute power to make of the important decisions about learning for students is framed as an obstacle to students’ learning (Shor, 1992; 1996; Kresiberg, 1992; Weimer, 2002; Manor, Bloch-Schulman, Flannery & Felten, 2010).

Theoretical Background:– The instructor has a majority of power to make decisions

– Students as powerless in their own education (Shor, 1992; 1996; Manor, Bloch-Schulman, Flannery & Felten, 2010)

– Students’ lack of taking responsibility for their education (Weimer, 2002; Manor et al., 2010)

– Passively affects students’ motivation, interest, confidence, enthusiasm for learning, and their ability to think independently (Charles, 1992; Shor, 1992, Kresiberg, 1992; Weimer, 2002)

Theoretical Background:

• Assessment is the most political of all educational processes; it is where issues of power are most at stake. If there is no staff/student collaboration in assessment, then staff exert a stranglehold that inhibits the development of collaboration with respect to all other processes. (Heron, 1979, p. 13)

Theoretical Background:• Boud and Prosser (1980): faculty/students

collaboration in the assessment process:Move assessment from “one way-of students

by staff” (p. 24) to a cooperative relation in which assessment is “jointly owned by both staff and students” (Boud & Prosser, 1980, p. 26).

• Recently, (Falchikov, 2003; 2005): involving students as partners in the assessment process.

Purpose:The purpose of this case study was to answer the following questions:

1)What are the meanings that students construct from the learning experience of the collaborative design of course assignments?

2)What are the meanings that students construct from the learning experience of a peer review?

Method:• Multiple Case Studies.• Data Gathering Methods:Observation: a graduate education course

for 2:30 hours per week for one semester (15 weeks)

Students’ interview (6 graduate students)Analyzing students’ course work and course

syllabus. • Comparative Analysis

Results: Student-Generated Assignments:

Results: Student-Generated Assignments:

Results: Student-Generated Assignments:

Results: Student-Generated Assignments:

Results: Sample of Student-Generated Assignments

Results: Sample of Student-Generated Assignments

Results: Peer Review:

Students’ Meanings of Collaborative Design of Course Assignments:

Students’ Meanings of Collaborative Design of Course Assignments:

• Student Control: If you are setting goals for yourself and how you are

going to achieve them, you are having more control over your learning process because you know what is going on. You are more in control on what is happening. (Sonia)

It gives you control and say over what needs to be done, as oppose to somebody says: this is what you have to do in order to get grades in the class. I created assignments that could help me to focus more in my dissertation and help me to move forward in my program. (Tina)

• Student control and motivation: That [control] is very important for me. It makes me

involved with the materials. I have to have that kind of mental involvement with what I am learning, so I can retain it. (Sonia)

Being able to come up with the assignments allows us to have control of the class. I believe giving some control of the class to the students makes us interested to get more out of it. (Sammy)

• Student control and taking responsibility: Control gives us the buy in, the responsibility,

accountability. It makes you accountable for learning that assignment and for the class. (Tina)

I took responsibility for my own learning. I wrote chapter 3, the entire chapter 3. I spent hours and hours doing it, even I was not sure what I was doing but I made chapter 3 with totally references because that was what I wanted. (Sara)

• Motivation: To be able to create the assignments, you could

personalize it more to meet your needs and what you are researching and what you are doing on the dissertation, which is a motivating thing, like: I want to do this because it is something I am interested in. I am more motivated to learn when it is something I like to do, instead to just to be told what to do. (Sammy)

That allowed me to choose something meaningful to me and my dissertation. I think I can do a better job than just turning something because I have to. If I believe on the importance of the assignment to me, then I will have patience in learning, rather than just filling out the requirements, the minimum requirements. (Antony)

• The instructor as a facilitator: She facilitated a long the way. She did not say like: here

you go, you design it, you put it together, you go, see you later. Rather she says like: you may think about this think about that. She was not totally out of it. She is kind of guiding us without actually telling what to do. (Sammy)

She told us to select whatever we wanted to do, but she was still guiding us in some ways like: do you want to read something, do you want a lecture. She wanted to make sure that we had the readings, the lecture, and we have some activities. I like that because if she did not ask us to read, I do not like to read, so I will do whatever I want. (Antony)

A Peer Review:

A Peer Review:• Enhance Learning through reading each other

paper:I do benefit from reading other people’s work,

seeing how they organize and format their writing. I think the more you read, the more you see how papers are put together, the more you learn. (Tina)

Peer Feedback:

• Constructive FeedbackA peer review is a peer review where I get

feedback on the content to improve my paper. It is not just using the rubric and grade the paper. (Sara)

Peer Feedback:

• Perceived ExpertiseI do not care for a peer review because

sometimes you do not value that opinion from a particular peer, and sometimes peers reviewing it do not know the topic. To me that is not beneficial. (Karl)

Peer Feedback:

• Power RelationsThey are friends of mine so it is hard to critique

them. They are classmates in the same program I am going through. Who I am to critique them. I am a student like them. I feel bad when I critique someone. I want everybody to succeed so I do not want to critique them. I gave them 4, 4, 4 because I want them to succeed. (Karl)

Peer Feedback

• Lack of Subject Knowledge:They are more advanced than me in the doctoral

program, so they know more about what it needs than me, how can I tell them, you are missing this or missing that? so I did not have the knowledge to make their papers better. (Antony)

Conditioned that instructors have absolute power: Just to show you how conditioned we are as students,

we are conditioned to instructors do that because they have the power in the class and students do not have the power to make those decisions. It is okay to work on the curriculum content but when it comes to grading or what expectations on grades in the course, no body did. (Tina)

An Easy Road:

I have to be honest with that, people tend to take the easy road. I do think people have tendency to get little lazy with things like: if it is there we accept it instead of making it, that is ready to go. Also we all are very busy, so sometimes if she provides for us, we will say okay that is fine that works. If she said like: part of your grade, you must build your own rubric, then we will build it. (Sammy)

Empowerment:• Sometimes I had issues with correcting people who I

consider superior to me, people who had better knowledge, more experience in the area. I am shy about going in and saying: okay this does not work. I know I am good at that as a secretary, but I am not good at it as a student. (Sonia)

• It [a peer review] gives you better feel of your own strengths and weakens. Each of us has strengths and weakens. (Sonia)

Conclusion:• This study finding suggests that the traditional

role, in which the instructor has power to make all decisions relating to the education of students, needs to change into a partnership.

• In this partnership, students are encouraged to take control of their education, including some involvement in assessment.

References:• Aronowitz, S. (1993). Paulo Freire’s radical democratic humanism. In P. Mclaren &

P. Leonard (Eds.). Paulo Freire: A critical encounter (pp. 8-23). USA: Routledge.• Boud, D., & Prosser, M. (1980). Sharing responsibility: Staff-student cooperation

in learning. British Journal of Educational Technology, 11(1), 24-35. • Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. New York: Macmillan Publishing

Company.• Falchikov, N. (2003). Involving students in assessment. Psychology Learning and

Teaching, 3(2), 102-108.• Falchikov, N. (2005). Improving assessment through student involvement:

Practical solutions for aiding learning in higher and further education. London: RoutledgeFalmer.

• Freire, P. (1993). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: The Continuum International.

• Heron, J. (1979) Assessment. Working paper. •

References:• Kreisberg, S. (1992). Transforming power: Domination, empowerment, and

education. USA: State University of New York Press. • Manor, C., Bloch-Schulman, S., Flannery, K., & Felten, P. (2010). Foundations of

student-faculty partnerships in the scholarship of teaching and learning: Theoretical and developmental considerations. In C. Werder & M. Otis (Eds.) Engaging student voices in the study of teaching and learning (pp. 3-15). Sterling, VA: Stylus.

• Shor, I. (1992). When students have power: Negotiating authority in a critical pedagogy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

• Shor, I. (1996). When students have power : negotiating authority in a critical pedagogy. Chicago : University of Chicago Press.

• Weimer, M. (2002). Learner-centered teaching: Five key changes to practice. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Q & A

Thank You