Publication:
Using assessment audits to understand students’ learning obstacles

dc.contributor.author LeBard, Rebecca en_US
dc.contributor.author Quinnell, Rosanne en_US
dc.date.accessioned 2021-11-25T14:45:23Z
dc.date.available 2021-11-25T14:45:23Z
dc.date.issued 2008 en_US
dc.description.abstract Undergraduate science students are given opportunities to link the descriptions of scientific phenomena presented in lectures to their own observations of similar scientific phenomena in practical classes so as to reinforce key concepts. Being able to conceptually move between the scientific phenomena and the abstracted figures or equations that represent those phenomena is a key skill. Developing this skill, and confidence with applying this skill, is the implicit objective of many undergraduate practical classes. However, students seem unable to adequately explain their observations, despite the implementation of many “how to” guides, and this is of concern, which is why we seek to identify some of the factors that seem to impede students from being able to correctly translate and explain scientific data. We audited 118 laboratory reports in from second year molecular biology students to assess students’ abilities to correctly record and calculate data, appropriately present data, and clearly explain the representation of their data. Each of these abilities were linked to criteria in the report marking scheme students had been provided and for the purpose of our audit, graded as to whether the students completed the task poorly or not at all (1), adequately with some errors (2), or correctly and clearly (3). The data showed that a high proportion of students could not complete these tasks correctly and confirms that students have difficulty moving between the phenomena they observe and its abstract presentation. Having identified and quantified where students are having difficulties, we will use this information to inform the design of an online learning module to improve the conceptual linkages between a) an observed scientific phenomenon, b) the experimental data c) how these data are presented and d) interpreted. We expect to be able to determine the efficacy of this approach by re-auditing laboratory reports, after the online module is in place. en_US
dc.identifier.isbn 978-1-74210-062-3 en_US
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/1959.4/43286
dc.language English
dc.language.iso EN en_US
dc.publisher Uniserve Science en_US
dc.rights CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 en_US
dc.rights.uri https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/au/ en_US
dc.source Legacy MARC en_US
dc.subject.other assessment audit en_US
dc.subject.other troublesome knowledge en_US
dc.title Using assessment audits to understand students’ learning obstacles en_US
dc.type Conference Paper en
dcterms.accessRights metadata only access
dspace.entity.type Publication en_US
unsw.accessRights.uri http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_14cb
unsw.description.notePublic Original inactive link: http://science.uniserve.edu.au/pubs/procs/2008/182.pdf en_US
unsw.description.publisherStatement © 2008 Rebecca LeBard and Rosanne Quinnell The authors assign to UniServe Science and educational non-profit institutions a non-exclusive licence to use this document for personal use and in courses of instruction provided that the article is used in full and this copyright statement is reproduced. The authors also grant a non-exclusive licence to UniServe Science to publish this document on the Web (prime sites and mirrors) and in printed form within the UniServe Science 2008 Conference proceedings. Any other usage is prohibited without the express permission of the authors UniServe Science reserved the right to undertake editorial changes in regard to formatting, length of paper and consistency. en_US
unsw.publisher.place Sydney, Australia en_US
unsw.relation.faculty Science
unsw.relation.ispartofconferenceLocation Sydney, Australia en_US
unsw.relation.ispartofconferenceName Uniserve Science en_US
unsw.relation.ispartofconferenceProceedingsTitle Visualisation and Concept Development en_US
unsw.relation.ispartofconferenceYear 2008 en_US
unsw.relation.ispartofpagefrompageto 182-187 en_US
unsw.relation.originalPublicationAffiliation LeBard, Rebecca, Biotechnology & Biomolecular Sciences, Faculty of Science, UNSW en_US
unsw.relation.originalPublicationAffiliation Quinnell, Rosanne, Faculty of Science, UNSW en_US
unsw.relation.school School of Biotechnology & Biomolecular Sciences *
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