PLAT2010 Conference Abstracts

Abstract

In order for students to take control of their learning and in effect become self-regulated learners they need to understand what good performance is, be able to judge accurately how their performance compares to good performance, and understand what they need to do to improve performance. Higher-achieving students are more likely to engage actively in and self-regulate their learning, but we argue that even 'at risk' students have the potential to become self-regulated learners. However, anecdotal and research evidence has indicated that low-and high-performing students differ in their capacity to understand the requirements of assessment within academic tasks.This discrepancy has been attributed to differences in motivation but also in cognitive processing, in that poorer-performing students have difficulty in understanding and objectively applying set criteria to their own work. Consequently, an understanding of assessment criteria and student cognitive processing is important for aiding students in their course performance. This project investigated differences in ability to understand and apply assessment criteria among a cohort of final-year psychology students within the School of Social Sciences and Psychology at Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia.The aim in this field study was to assess differences in the cognitive grasp of performance measurement between students with high academic ability and students with relatively lower academic ability. In particular, the project examined students' capacity to reflect upon and assess their own and other students' work against set marking criteria. Specifically, the hypothesis was that weaker-performing students were more generous or tended to grade themselves higher in comparison to stronger-performing students.Participants included 64 third-(and final-) year psychology students, 52 females and 12 males, completing the core unit History and Theories of Psychology within the Bachelor of Psychology degree. Results indicated that higher-performing students were significantly more accurate in predicting their academic performance than lower-performing students. Analysing the Influence of Tutoring in Problem-BasedLearning: the role of tutors' and students' expertise Joerg Zumbach, University of Salzburg, Austria (joerg.zumbach@sbg.ac.at) In this session we will examine the role of tutoring behaviour and learners' expertise in problembased learning. Problem-based learning (PBL) is an interdisciplinary, collaborative, and situated learning approach that contributes to meaningful and successful learning and teaching within authentic learning environments. Nevertheless, several factors directly and indirectly affect problem-based learning, such as case or problem design, learning group characteristics, the role and expertise of tutors, and learner characteristics.In one study we investigated the role of tutors' content expertise during a problem-based learning scenario. We examined whether or not a tutor should use content expertise in facilitating