Conference sessions in Assessment and monitoring

Assessment and skill diversification in economics: a first-year undergraduate experience of a group video project

Growth in student enrolment onto UK higher education economics programmes has given rise to several pedagogical challenges relating to assessment design and student engagement. At the same time, employer surveys emphasise the need to complement subject-specific knowledge with soft skills such as time management, teamwork and communication skills. There is thus a need for efficient means of assessing and providing feedback to large cohorts, while also stimulating student engagement and embedding a diverse array of skills into the learning outcomes of economics modules. To address these challenges in the context of a first-year economics module we replaced a 1,000-word individual coursework report with a group assignment, where students were required to work together to produce a three-minute video on an approved economics topic of their choosing. The assessment design included elements of peer assessment to account for heterogeneity in the contribution of group members and limit free-riding incentives. Focus groups were used to elicit students’ perceptions on how the group video assessment contributed to their learning experience and skills development, how it compares with other methods of assessment, as well as suggestions for improved implementation. In addition, three dedicated questions relating to students’ perceptions of the group video assignment were embedded into the module evaluation questionnaire. Our analysis generates insightful results regarding all these aspects. Students reported a preference for diversity in assessment methods, finding the video assignment a positive, engaging but also a challenging experience, which provided the opportunity for students to collaborate and develop teamwork and communication skills.

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Enhancing employability through authentic assessment: A consulting report in intermediate microeconomics

Undergraduate microeconomics education often involves essay-based assessments. Such assessments typically fail to encourage active learning, develop employability skills and give students confidence to attempt theoretical modelling. We designed and evaluated an authentic assessment as an alternative to essays: the “Economics Consulting Report”. The assessment was used on a core Intermediate Microeconomics module with 287 students. Students were asked to imagine they work at an economics consultancy and to develop a model using Expected Utility Theory to advise their client on what to do in the face of uncertainty. Several resources were developed to aid students in this challenging task. Our survey of students found that: 73% preferred this assessment to an essay; 81% learnt more from it than an essay; 93% felt it developed employability skills and 69% thought it should be used in other economics modules. We provide some reflection on the successes and difficulties encountered in implementation.

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Replacing multiple choice questions with a matrix puzzle to assess student understanding in economics

In an undergraduate classroom, multiple choice questions are commonly used to assess students' economic understanding. A series of multiple-choice questions on a topic, however, often provide only poorly connected bits of test information that may not reveal what student know and do not know about the assessed topic. A matrix puzzle, by contrast, can be a more efficient alternative to a set of disjointed multiple-choice items. It is holistic and requires problem solving for student to put all the pieces of the puzzle together in the correct way to show mastery of the economic content. In one example of a matrix puzzle, the topic for assessment is supply and demand in a competitive market. The rows of the matrix were the changes in demand or supply (increase or decrease). The columns were outcomes affecting price and quantity (increase or decrease). In each cell of the matrix puzzle, a student has to determine how each change in demand or supply would affect each outcome and provide consistent and correct answers across all cells to “solve” the puzzle. In this paper, we significantly extend that initial work and present other examples showing how matrix puzzles can be developed and used to test economic understanding across a wide range of content in micro and macro principles courses and in field courses in economics such as environmental economics. We also discuss instructors can use matrix puzzles to improve formative and summative assessment of student understanding of economics.

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Does Attendance in Class Make a Difference to Student Grades? An Investigation of a Cohort of BSc Economics Students

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Which Factors Affect the Interest and Willingness of Students to Participate in Economic Education Programmes?

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Technology Oriented Learning Diagnostics in Economic Education - Theory and Practice

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