Encouraging learning through external engineering assessment

Abstract

Examinations are commonly used at the end of teaching periods as major components of assessment for external engineering students because they are the only assessment mechanism which examiners can be reasonably sure are completed by students acting alone. However the literature suggests that examinations are flawed instruments of assessment for many reasons, not least because they encourage poor approaches to learning but also because they no not allow useful feedback to students. This paper reports on a trial of assignment-based assessment, details of which are sufficiently complex and diverse that they encourage individual work by students, both in course content and in other graduate attributes.