Designing effective assessment in postgraduate construction project management studies

It is commonly agreed that assessment is the single most powerful driver on learning in postgraduate education. Effective assessment methods are held to be very important in maximising students' learning, motivating students, fairly and reliably evaluating the subject and providing informative feedback to lecturers and to students on their learning progression. Assessment normally consists of individual assignments, group assignments and final exams. Furthermore, group assignments have been commonly used in postgraduate education to allow students to learn about teamwork skills. Assessment of group assignments in a proper and fair manner has been a major concern, however, and a challenge to both students and lecturers. Using a questionnaire survey, students' perceptions on the various assessment methods used in a postgraduate construction project management course are investigated. The findings suggest that while the research-based group assignment was considered effective in demonstrating learning of technical content and collaboration skills, the students strongly favoured assessment of individual contributions to group assignments. Furthermore, it was found that group-based in-class oral presentations were also effective in demonstrating learning of technical content and developing presentation and communication skills, and peer assessment of the oral presentations was found to be worthwhile. While group assignment is a common assessment format, individual assignments and the final exam are also a necessary part of the overall assessment of a course. The research findings suggest that well-designed learning activities which correspond to learning objectives and the use of different assessment methods with prescribed assessment criteria are useful strategies contributing to successful learning and teaching in postgraduate construction management studies