Proposal Title
The efficiency of different evaluation criteria in undergraduate laboratory courses
Session Type
Poster
Start Date
6-7-2011 5:30 PM
Keywords
undergraduate labs, assessment criteria, small group teaching, cell biology
Primary Threads
Teaching and Learning Science
Abstract
Application of multiple evaluation criteria in undergraduate laboratory courses is intended to provide impartial and fair assignments of final grades. The actual question, however, is how to weight different evaluation categories making sure that they provide properly balanced evaluation method. We suggest that a decisive factor to range appropriately evaluation criteria could be based on the analysis of differences between specific averages for each evaluation criteria. To elaborate this notion, we examined the pool of individual student’s marks (138 students in total) covering five academic semesters (2009-2011) in a third year undergraduate laboratory-only course, Cell Biology Laboratory. The evaluation method in this class is based on five criteria such as class participation (10%), lab notebook (10%), quizzes (15%), individual midterm assignment (35%), and group poster project (30%). The raw data and differences between means were analysed using ANOVA and post hoc Tukey’s tests. The results revealed that there were highly significant differences (F4,685=116.030, P
The efficiency of different evaluation criteria in undergraduate laboratory courses
Application of multiple evaluation criteria in undergraduate laboratory courses is intended to provide impartial and fair assignments of final grades. The actual question, however, is how to weight different evaluation categories making sure that they provide properly balanced evaluation method. We suggest that a decisive factor to range appropriately evaluation criteria could be based on the analysis of differences between specific averages for each evaluation criteria. To elaborate this notion, we examined the pool of individual student’s marks (138 students in total) covering five academic semesters (2009-2011) in a third year undergraduate laboratory-only course, Cell Biology Laboratory. The evaluation method in this class is based on five criteria such as class participation (10%), lab notebook (10%), quizzes (15%), individual midterm assignment (35%), and group poster project (30%). The raw data and differences between means were analysed using ANOVA and post hoc Tukey’s tests. The results revealed that there were highly significant differences (F4,685=116.030, P