Students' preferences in undergraduate mathematics assessment

Abstract

Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. Existing research into students' preferences for assessment methods has been developed from a restricted sample: in particular, the voice of students in the 'hard-pure sciences' has rarely been heard. We conducted a mixed method study to explore mathematics students' preferences of assessment methods. In contrast to the message from the general assessment literature, we found that mathematics students differentially prefer traditional assessment methods such as closed book examination; they perceive them to be fairer than innovative methods and they perceive traditional methods to be the best discriminators of mathematical ability.We also found that although students prefer to be assessed by traditional methods they are also concerned by the mix of methods they encounter during their degree, suggesting that more account needs to be taken about the students' views of this mix. We discuss the impact of the results on the way general findings about assessment preference should be interpreted.

Students’ views of oral performance assessment in mathematics: straddling the ‘assessment of’ and ‘assessment for’ learning divide

“…Moreover, students appear to share this sense of the particular nature of their subject: Iannone and Simpson (2014) found that, contrary to the findings from more generalist literature, the mathematics students in their sample tended to prefer to be assessed by traditional methods and perceived them as better at discriminating between students on the grounds of ability.…”

“…Joughin (2010) noted that some key influences on higher education policy and practice may have been over-generalized and that research involving students in particular countries, universities and disciplines may not easily generalize to other contexts. For example, Iannone and Simpson (2014) noted that the vast majority of participants in studies on students' assessment preferences came from just five subject areas (psychology, biology, economics, education and engineering) with none apparently coming from what Biglan (1973) called the 'hard, pure' sciences. Norton, Norton and Shannon (2013) noted that little work has focused on the effect of discipline on assessment practices, though Yorke (2011) argued for a need for a better understanding of the mix of assessment practices in different disciplines and its impact on grades and degree classifications.…”

Mathematics lecturers' views of examinations: tensions and possible resolutions

“…The first phase mirrored the approach taken in studies on students' perceptions of assessment (such as Dochy, 2006 andSimpson, 2014) in using an adapted form of the Assessment Preferences Inventory (API) developed by Birenbaum (1994). The API asks participants to rate different forms of assessment according to the study's focus.…”

“…The API asks participants to rate different forms of assessment according to the study's focus. The adapted API was based on eight different assessment methods which might be used or applicable to mathematics and which were adopted directly from Iannone and Simpson (2014). These were given with a short description, thus:…”

Research on Teaching and Learning Mathematics at the Tertiary Level: State-of-the-Art and Looking Ahead

“…They found that students' perceptions differ significantly from what is reported by the general educational literature. Indeed these students prefer to be assessed by assessment methods they perceive to be good discriminators of ability and see the closed book examination as one of the best of these discriminators (Iannone and Simpson 2015a). They also see oral examinations as a very good way to assess for ability in mathematics.…”