Two Stage Assessments

Pro­mot­ing Col­lab­o­ra­tion and Feed­back for Stu­dents

Two-stage assess­ments can pro­vide stu­dents with an engag­ing alter­na­tive to tra­di­tion­al assess­ment. The first stage of the assess­ment is com­plet­ed indi­vid­u­al­ly and in the sec­ond stage stu­dents com­plete the same assess­ment in groups of 3 or 4. This assess­ment method incor­po­rates col­lab­o­ra­tive group work in a test or exam set­ting. Dur­ing a test stu­dent moti­va­tion is high and instruc­tors can use this high incen­tive to pro­mote and enhance learn­ing and con­tent reten­tion.

Implementation

Stage 1: A stan­dard indi­vid­ual test writ­ten for a dura­tion of approx­i­mate­ly 2/3 of the total time.

Stage 2: In the sec­ond stage, stu­dents will com­plete the same test in small groups for the remain­ing 1/3 of the time. The stu­dents have already worked on each ques­tion dur­ing stage 1 so com­plet­ing the same exam in stage 2 takes less time and allows the group to focus on dis­cus­sions and find­ing a con­sen­sus for the best solu­tions.

Best Practices for Implementation

At the start of the course and through­out the semes­ter describe the struc­ture for two-stage assess­ments. Inform stu­dents about the ben­e­fits and ref­er­ence evi­dence from pre­vi­ous class­es and research.

Empha­size the impor­tance of col­lab­o­ra­tion by cre­at­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties dur­ing each class for stu­dents to work with var­i­ous small groups (group prob­lem solv­ing, think-pair-share, sage and scribe, team-based learn­ing and oth­er small group dis­cus­sions and activ­i­ties). Ensure stu­dents have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to work with a vari­ety of oth­er stu­dents.

A com­mon split is approx­i­mate­ly 85% for indi­vid­ual (stage 1) and 15% for group (stage 2). This main­tains the impor­tance of indi­vid­ual prepa­ra­tion while pro­vid­ing an oppor­tu­ni­ty for stu­dents to improve upon their grade from the group por­tion.

This allows for a large enough group to obtain mul­ti­ple per­spec­tives and ideas while remain­ing small enough for each stu­dent to be able to con­tribute and find a group con­sen­sus. Groups can be ran­dom­ly assigned using an online team gen­er­a­tor.

Stu­dents write all their names and must work togeth­er to agree on solu­tions to hand in one test. If more than one test is hand­ed out, stu­dents tend to work alone more and with­draw from the dis­cus­sion.

A pol­i­cy where test mark will be the high­er of either 85% x (indi­vid­ual grade) + 15% x (group grade) or 100% x (indi­vid­ual grade). In prac­tice, the group grade will be high­er than the indi­vid­ual grade for most stu­dents and there­fore pro­vides a boost for the over­all test grade.

A vari­ety of ques­tion types can be incor­po­rat­ed into the exam, how­ev­er, longer essay type ques­tions should be avoid­ed as these can be dif­fi­cult to com­plete as a group. Try to cre­ate ques­tions that will ben­e­fit from group dis­cus­sion.

The stage 2 por­tion can be the exact same test as stage 1 or it could be a sub­set of the ques­tions from stage 1 (such as the most challenging/conceptual ques­tions).

References