A cross-cultural study of students’ perceptions of assessment practices in higher education

Abstract

Purpose – This study aims to utilized the item response theory (IRT) rating scale model to analyze students’ perceptions of assessment practices in two universities: one in Jordan and the other in the USA. The sample of the study consisted of 506 university students selected from both universities. Results show that the two universities still focus on paper-pencil testing to assess students’ learning outcomes. The study recommends that higher education institutes should encourage their teachers to use different assessment methods to assess students’ learning outcomes. Design/methodology/approach – The convenience sample consisted of 506 selected university students from the USA and Jordan, and participants were distributed according to their educational levels, thus: 83 freshmen, 139 sophomores, 157 juniors and 59 seniors. (Note: some students from both universities did not report their gender and/or their educational level). The USA university sample consisted of 219 students from three colleges at a major university in the southeast of the USA studying for arts and sciences, education and commerce and business qualifications, of whom 43 were males and 173 were females. The study used the Students Perception of Assessment Practices Inventory developed by Alquraan (2007), and for the purpose of this study, the RUMM2020 program was used for its rating scale model. Findings – Both universities, in Jordan and the USA, still focus more on the developmental (construction of assessment tasks), organizational and planning aspects of assessment processes than they do on assessments of learning and assessment methods (traditional and new assessment methods). The assessment practices that are used frequently in both universities based on the teachers sampled are: “(I27) I know what to study for the test in this class”, “(I6) Teacher provides a good environment during test administration” and “(I21) My teacher avoids interrupting students as they are taking tests”. This indicates that teachers in the selected universities have a tendency to focus on the administrative and communicative aspects of assessment (e.g. providing a good environment during test administration) more than on using different assessment methods (e.g. portfolios, new technology, computers, peer and self-assessment) or even using assessment practices that help students learn in different ways (e.g. assessing students’ prior knowledge and providing written feedback on the graded tests). Originality/value – This is a cross-cultural study focus assessment of students learning in higher education.

Students’ perception of frequent assessments and its relation to motivation and grades in a statistics course: a pilot study

“…Some research focuses on students' perceptions of specific assessment methods (Flores et al 2015), or specific assessment tasks (Gulikers, Bastiaens, and Kirschner 2004). others focus on students' perceptions of assessment in general (Brown and Wang 2013), or their perception of teachers' assessment behaviour (Alquraan 2014). The aspects of the measured perceptions also differ across research.…”

End-user satisfaction of technology-enabled assessment in higher education: A coping theory perspective

“…Rouseff-Baker and Holm (2004) posit that assessments provide students with information on learning goals and strategies. The primary assessment method used in higher education institutes has predominantly been pen and paper tests (Alquraan 2014;Frank and Barzilai 2004). This has been a traditionally preferred assessment method as it allows the faculty to assess a wide variety of skills of students (Denton et al 2008).…”

Methods of assessing students' learning in higher education

“…This indicates that teachers use the same methods to assess learning regardless of the grading system utilized in their institution. These results could indicate that the main difference between the two grading systems is the way of reporting students' final grade (Alquraan, 2007). Based on the review of the regulations of Jordanian universities, from both grading systems, teachers should conduct assessment methods which they think suitable for the content of the courses they teach to assess learning, and these methods are the same regardless the grading system the university uses.…”

“…Alquraan (2007) categorized assessment methods that are used to measure students' learning outcomes in higher education as paper‐and‐pencil assessment, performance assessment, oral communication, portfolios, computer‐assisted assessment, self and peer assessment, and student's notebook.…”