Large classes are a reality in many tertiary programmes in the South African context and this involves several challenges. One of these is the assessment process, including the provision of meaningful feedback and implementing strategies to support struggling students. Due to large student numbers, multiple-choice questions (MCQs) are often used…

Problem Statement: Performance assessments have emerged as an alternative method to measure what a student knows and can do. One of the shortcomings of performance assessments is the subjectivity and inconsistency of raters in scoring. A common criticism of performance assessments is the subjective nature of scoring procedures. The effectiveness…

Over the last decade, the pedagogical approach known as mathematical modeling has received increased interest in college algebra classes in the United States. Math modeling assignments ask students to develop their own problem-solving tools to address non-routine, realistic scenarios. The open-ended quality of modeling activities creates dilemmas…

This paper uses data from a four-year college in Taiwan to examine the effect of adopting a stricter dismissal policy on course selection, student effort, and grading practices. Under the new rule, students are dismissed if they fail 50 percent or more credits in "any" two semesters as opposed to two "consecutive" semesters.…

Automatic evaluation is a challenging field that has been addressed by the academic community in order to reduce the assessment workload. In this work we present a new element for the authoring tool Easy Java Simulations (EJS). This element, which is named automatic evaluation element (AEE), provides automatic evaluation to virtual and remote…

Oral language exams at university often consist of an individual or group conversation with the examiner about topics dealt with during the semester. A question-and-answer format is applied and vocabulary and structures tested. As a consequence, the oral exam does not reflect action-oriented approaches that often form part of classroom activities…

Many instructors new to teaching English composition at the college level feel frustrated with what to teach and how to teach it. To learn about the context of support for these instructors, this small scale pilot study asked current ESL composition instructors in a large Midwestern research university to respond to a questionnaire aimed at…

What does it mean to hold schools accountable? How do we measure school performance? Why do we care? We convened focus groups of K-12 stakeholders to wrestle with these tough questions and help us better understand the current accountability landscape--where we've been as well as where we're headed. We've compiled what those focus group…

Although many researchers have investigated sport education (SE) as a curriculum model at different educational levels (Bennett & Hastie, 1997; MacPhail, Gorely, Kirk, & Kinchin, 2008; MacPhail & Kinchin, 2004; Spittle & Byrne, 2009), there has been limited research on preservice physical education (PE) teachers' perceptions of SE.…

The challenge of teaching in the sciences is not only conveying knowledge in the discipline, but also developing essential critical thinking, data analysis, and scientific writing skills. I outline an exercise that can be done easily as part of a microbiology laboratory course. It teaches the nature of the research process, from asking questions…

We demonstrate how the re-marker and reporter facility of the DEWIS e-Assessment system facilitates the capture, analysis and reporting of student errors using two case studies: logarithms and indices for first-year computing students at the University of the West of England, and Sturm-Liouville problems for second-year mathematics students at…

While a number of scholars have discussed the pervasiveness of the conceptualization of students as customers, to date there has been limited reliable research examining the extent to which students actually view themselves as customers. Using a survey that was administered to a census of entering first-year students at a large public research…

College and University faculty members routinely share stories and anecdotes about students who appear to have an unrealistic expectation of entitlement when it comes to following the requirements and dictates of classroom and collegiate rigor (Gill, 2009; Lippman, Bulanda, Wagenaar, 2009; Roosevelt, 2009). Faculty stories and discussions include…

Instructors often debate the merits of alternate grading policies such as dropping the lowest exam or offering an additional exam to replace the lowest score. To date, there has been little research conducted on the impact of these policies on performance. In this study, the author investigates student performance in intermediate macroeconomics…

Authors have researched the effects of homework, but few studies have delved into the idea of students' attitude towards homework. Consequently, students' perception of homework, the principal participants, remains largely unknown. Students' experience in homework that started as early as elementary school has influenced their ideas of homework.…