Towards the development and delivery of sustainable assessment in foundation engineering studies

CONTEXT Boud (2000) has argued that higher education assessment must be sustainable so it “meets the needs of the present and prepares students to meet their future learning needs”. Within engineering education, sustainability means tasks should have real-world currency and encourage lifelong learning and self-regulatory competence. Portfolios are a widely adopted assessment practice in engineering which aligns well with understandings of sustainable assessment; however, many students have not experienced this assessment before entering higher education. Mismanaging the implementation of these assessments at critical times such as first encounters can often result in student bewilderment and frustration, potentially leading to increased attrition. PURPOSE The study aimed to develop effective scaffolding and supports for introducing portfolio assessment to first-year engineering students in response to student voice data. APPROACH An action research approach was adopted to examine the implementation of portfolio assessment with a cohort of Engineering students from diverse backgrounds. Students’ experiences of this portfolio assessment were gathered via surveys where they were asked to rate assessments on the ‘value’ of their learning, how much ‘effort’ was required to complete them and how ‘difficult’ they were to complete. These investigations, along with student satisfaction and results, informed significant revisions to the assessment structure of the unit in 2016 and further refinements in 2017; while the largely cross-sectional design means that such data cannot establish that one approach was more effective, they can provide some anecdotal evidence of improvements in the student experience. RESULTS Data indicated that unit revisions might have improved both students’ experiences and their academic achievement. For example, Absent Fail grades fell in 2017 to only seven down from 17 in 2015. Also, the 2017 cohort achieved an increase in grade point average of 4.91 up from 4.27 in 2015. Improvements in student satisfaction in areas of assessment tasks, learning resources and Moodle navigation were also noted. CONCLUSIONS These data suggest that not only could students see the benefit of portfolio assessment, but that introducing it in a structured and scaffolded way potentially improves the student experience and also their academic results