Funded mini-projects
(768) Assessment discourses and students' engagement with the assessment in schools of veterinary nursing, nursing and pharmacy at Myerscough College and the University of Central Lancashire
N.B. The information below is authored by the mini-project applicants, not by staff of the subject centre.
This text represents the views and opinions of the mini-project team
only, not those of the subject centre or its affiliates.
Principal investigator
Ms Janet Dyke, University of Central Lancashire
Full list of project partners
Karen Greenwood; lecturer in pharmacy practice new researcher e.mail: KJGreenwood@uclan.ac.uk Kathy Kissick; lecturer in veterinary nursing new researcher e.mail: kkissick@myersough.ac.uk Lorraine Allan; lecturer in veterinary nursing new researcher e.mail: lallan@myerscough.ac.uk Tracey Williams; senior lecturer in nursing new researcher e.mail: TWilliams@uclan.ac.uk Ann Tordoff Year 3 MPharm student e.mail: ATordoff@uclan.ac.uk 1 undergraduate Nursing student – name to be announced
Topic
Student Engagement in Assessment
Background
Introduction:
To be engaged with any learning activity, including assessment, students must be actively involved (Munns and Woodward, 2006; Boud & Falchikov, 2006). Previous research indicated new pharmacy students can view assessment as something that is ‘done to them’ by a qualified person, and they can believe they have a back seat role rather than active involvement in the assessment process (Dyke et al., 2009). It will be useful to discover if student beliefs might be affected by how assessment is represented within the University.
Representation of assessment can be accessed through analysis of institutional documents and through the ways in which lecturers speak of assessment. Students’ own discourses can also reveal attitudes towards, and thus engagement with, the assessment process. A comparison of these discourses in different schools could reveal how institutional discourses might have an impact on student engagement with assessment.
The research question to be addressed is therefore “what are the dominant discourses regarding assessment in the schools of nursing, veterinary nursing and pharmacy, and might there be a link between these discourses and student engagement with assessment?”.
Methods:
School documents will be analysed by critical discourse analysis. Semi-structured interviews with staff will be carried out by student interns who will also help devise the interviews and have input into analysis. 12 focus groups will be run with six volunteer students; two focus groups from each of years 1 and 3 in each school. Interview and focus group data will be sorted using iterative open coding and interrogated using discourse analysis. Focus group data will then inform Likert scale questionnaires which will be distributed to all year 1 and 3 nursing, veterinary nursing and pharmacy students. Internal validity will be assessed through each data set being interrogated independently by two researchers, in addition to the triangulation provided (a) by interviews and documents, and (b) by focus groups and questionnaires. Critical discourse analysis is an accepted tool in educational settings (Rogers et al., 2005) and will be particularly useful for linking students’ attitudes towards and institutional representations of assessment.
Timetable:
January: devise and run focus groups
February: complete focus groups
March: NVivo training; analyse documents
April: analyse focus groups; write and implement questionnaires
May: analyse focus group & questionnaires; staff interviews
June: complete analyses
July: evaluation; write up
Dissemination ongoing
Evaluation & Dissemination:
We will provide a blog for stakeholder evaluation of participation and commentary on agreement with the findings; hold an evaluation meeting with a view to building on the experiences and outcomes for further research; submit for peer review during dissemination. Outcomes will be disseminated at both internal and external conferences, by submission to a peer reviewed journal, and in the UCLan Research Informed Teaching journal.
Value for money:
The research has applicability across HE. Links across the schools will be valuable in future teaching, for example inter-professional learning. In-house training on NVivo is not available, thus we can demonstrate its use to other staff and use it in further pedagogic research.
Proposed activities
The lead applicant is currently undertaking a Doctorate in Education, analysing institutional discourse on assessment and how it might impact on students’ attitudes towards collaborative learning online. Discourse analysis skills built through this research will be of benefit to the project. The institution in question is the Open University and therefore although there will be some overlap in the literature review, the findings of the EdD analysis will be completely separate to the analysis in this proposed project.
Kathy Kissick completed an MAEd in 2008, Tracey Williams and Lorraine Allan are about to complete an MA Ed. Undertaking these qualifications has given these team members insight into educational research methods as well as knowledge of current issues in education including assessment.
Proposed outcomes
Outcomes:
Proposed material outcomes are:
Report for the HEA
Written report for submission to the peer reviewed journal Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education
Written report for inclusion in the UCLan Research Informed Teaching journal
Oral presentation for UCLan internal Teaching and Learning Conference
Oral and/or poster presentation for external education-focused conference
The forseen benefit for educators is an insight into how different representations of assessment might influence student attitudes towards, and thus engagement with, assessment. Any change in representation which might increase engagement would help embed assessment as a learning activity in which the student is an active participant. This would be of benefit to the student.
Expertise of grant holder and project team
Similar work
Boud, D. and Falchikov, N. (2006) ‘Aligning assessment with long-term learning’ Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education Vol. 31, No.4, pp.399-413
Dyke, J.E., Gidman, W.K, Wilson, S.E. and Becket, G. (2009) ‘Personal development planning: first-year Master of Pharmacy students’ engagement with, and attitudes towards, reflective self-assessment’ International Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmacology Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 61-66
Munns, G. And Woodward, H. (2006) ‘Student engagement and student self-assessment: the REAL framework Assessment in Education Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 193-213
Rogers, R., Malancharuvil-Berkes, E., Mosley, M., Hui, D. And O’Garro Joseph, G. (2005) ‘Critical discourse analysis in education: a review of the literature’ Review of Educational Research Vol. 75, No. 3, pp. 365-416
Contact details
Grant holder: jedyke@uclan.ac.uk,
University of Central Lancashire
Amount awarded: 3728
Subject centre project contact: Victor Ottaway
Reports
