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The epistemological beliefs of business
undergrads & their influence on satisfaction
with assessment and feedback
Berry O’Donovan, Oxford Brookes University
bodonovan@brookes.ac.uk
The seminal work of Perry (1970) on intellectual
development suggests that whilst at university students’
beliefs about the nature of knowledge, its acquisition and
form are likely to change and develop in complexity and
understanding.
Students interpret, or make meaning of, their educational
experience as a result of their assumptions about the
nature, limits and certainty of knowledge.
Baxter Magolda, 1992
Research Questions
What are the epistemic assumptions of business
undergraduates?
How do these influence students views on, and
satisfaction with, their experience of assessment and
feedback?
Methodology
Baxter Magolda’s (1992) Measure of Epistemological Reflection
Qualitative Research Instrument (27 questions) that seeks to determine
students’ epistemic assumptions over five core domains: their role as a
learner;
•the role of their peers;
•the role of tutors;
•the role of assessment;
•their beliefs about the nature of knowledge
Collectively termed by Baxter Magolda as ‘ways of knowing’.
.
Method or
‘if you want to go there, don’t start from here’
Completed by 200 of 557 business undergraduates in Week 2, Year 1
Completed by 19 students end of Year 2
Analysed by two researchers with categories and themes discussed and
agreed.
Two different stages:
•Categorisation: with training from Baxter Magolda, categorisation into
into four ‘ways of knowing’
•Thematic analysis on students’ assumptions about assessment and
feedback analysed within two fundamentally different perspectives --
‘dualistic’ and ‘relativistic’.
Ways of knowing of students on
entry to the programme
175 out of 200 holding primarily dualistic views
(categorised as ‘absolute’ or ‘transitional’)
Students assume:
• Knowledge to be certain and factual, right or wrong
• Authorities should know what is correct (authority dependence)
• Different views between experts are due to misinformation or
misunderstanding
• Transitional students dualistic as their prime perspective but viewed
knowledge as more or less certain in some subject domains
25 Students ‘contextual’ or ‘independent’ knowers
• ‘Relativism discovered’
• Contestability and uncertainty acknowledged
• There can be two or more legitimate explanations for a phenomena
Assessment and Feedback
assumptions of dualistic students
The primacy of assessment: good teaching as effective
preparation of assessment
Good teaching is making sure everyone knows and remembers enough for the
exam, don’t leave anything to chance
My A Level teacher was excellent, he was clear about the facts that students
should know for the exam and made sure that we knew them with lots of
examples and practice.
Too much discussion can be muddling, teach what we need to put in the
assignment.
Assessment and Feedback
assumptions of dualistic students
The necessity for absolute clarity on assessment
requirements, expectations and student achievement.
We need feedback on what we know. I want to know I have learnt the key
points before the exams.
I prefer coursework to exams, but teachers must be clear about what they
want me to write, not just a few vague sentences but specific outlines of
what is required
I need to be told the best way of doing an assignment then it is up to me to
follow this
Assessment and Feedback
assumptions of dualistic students
Good students should be rewarded… it is only fair
Students may not be successful in a piece of work but may have tried really
hard which has to be worth something.
Effort should be rewarded. I want my work marked by someone who knows
I have been in class and tried hard. It’s not fair if someone gets good marks
who hasn’t been coming to class or doing the work
Assessment and Feedback
assumptions of dualistic students
Assessors should know the student whose work they’re
marking
Teachers who know that you have tried your best and a good student
Very important for a teacher to mark who know his student makes effort and
tries hard
Seminar tutors who can judge how much a student put effort and is willing
to study and be a good student
Assessment and Feedback
assumptions of dualistic students
Authority dependence and irrelevance of peer contribution
I am worried that you are asking us how we should be assessed. The
teacher evaluates what we have learnt. What other way can there be?
The teacher is the expert, not the students and should mark work.
It’s the tutors work to mark students work. It’s part of their work.
Assessment and Feedback
assumptions of dualistic
students
Feedback as specific and corrective
‘Uni is new to me and I need to know how I am doing by having my
work corrected
The teacher needs to correct work so we know our mistakes
‘I want to know that I am doing my work correctly
Assessment and Feedback
assumptions of relativistic
students
• Assessment should involve more than one marker
and discussion with the student
Assessment and feedback should be an interactive process with the
teacher and student
Members of staff and yourself [should assess]
Relevant tutors mainly, [should assess] though student input may
be beneficial so I can explain why I have written the essay in a
certain way
Assessment and Feedback
assumptions of relativistic
students
• Assessment should be a relational process
The teacher/lecturer I suppose, but how does she/he know who ‘I AM’
[student’s own capitalisation] there’s so many of us.
Your personal tutor should be involved in assessment so they can judge
your overall progress and if there are inconsistencies
Personal tutors who know you and can track your progress over the degree
• Feedback as dialogue
Personal tutors and module leaders should mark and feedback on work in
discussion with students
At this level I hope to discuss my work with tutors not just get a few lines
[of feedback]
Teachers and pupils need to discuss together to a certain extent to see
where improvements could be made etc.
Assessment and Feedback
assumptions students end of 2nd
year
Only 19 usable responses
Difficult to categorise students maybe discovering relativism but
finding this very uncomfortable. No categorisation undertaken.
Themes:
• Recognition of diversity and a consequent necessity to
approach each assessment/module as unique
• The important of taking a pragmatic and instrumental
approach to assessment
• Suppression of voice and mimicry
• The importance of knowing and being known by assessors
Assessment and Feedback
assumptions students end of
2nd
year
Recognition of diversity and a consequent necessity to
approach each assessment/module as unique
Generally as a rule of thumb there are no right or wrong answers in
marketing, it is much more about justifying the decisions that you
make, but in Methods of Enquiry [second year research methods
module] you have to pick the correct way.
I have learnt from experience not to rely on anything I learnt from
business to an economics module.
My experience has been that different tutors want very different things
in assessment. You have to work out in each module over again
what is really required
Assessment and Feedback
assumptions students end
of 2nd
year
The importance of taking a pragmatic and instrumental
approach to assessment
I will readily accept facts, I have less faith in concepts and theories which are
often disproved, different tutors have different viewpoints and sometimes
you can not guess which one they want.
Because they are probably both right [two different explanations for the
same phenomena], student should try and guess which one is needed to
pass the module. BE PRAGMATIC! [student’s own capitalisation]
There may be no single correct way of doing things but they [tutors] should
all say the same thing so as not to confuse students before the exam if
they want students to do well.
Assessment and Feedback
assumptions students end
of 2nd
year
Suppression of voice and mimicry
Do not write what you want to write, write what the lecturer wants to read.
Some tutors want particular theories and explanations. We need to find out what
they want.
In some modules you have to think about things, but in others they just want you
put down stuff from the lecture, you have to guess
The importance of knowing and being known by
assessors
Seminar tutors should be the only ones who assess me. Many times they [tutors]
don’t say the same things. I feel it is unfair to be assessed by someone who
hasn’t taught me
Discussion
The Tyranny of Student Satisfaction…
Meeting student expectations matters more than ever within an
increasingly competitive and commercial HE sector
To attract and retain students ‘universities are compelled to pursue market
orientation strategies placing greater emphasis on meeting student
expectations’ (Arambewela and Hall, 2013, p. 972)
Epistemic assumptions influence students perspectives on the quality of
learning teaching and assessment processes (Baxter Magolda, 1992;
Chan 2003; Hofer 2004; Lucas & Meyer 2005; Cano 2005: Elby, 2009)
Intellectual development involves challenging the belief systems of
students and this can cause discomfort (Piaget, 1953; Mezirow, 1991;
Kember, 1997)
(
Discussion (2)
Sadler (1989, 2009) suggests that an indispensible condition for
students to improve their academic performance is to for them to
hold the same conceptions of quality as held by their tutors.
Such notions of quality not only affect student achievement but also
their perceptions of quality of learning, teaching and assessment
(Baxter Magolda, 1992; Chan, 2003; Hofer, 2004; Lucas and
Meyer, 2005) and frequently find expression in student
satisfaction surveys.
Discussion (3)
Perceptions of quality revolve around epistemic assumptions and
these vary between disciplines and department and even within
departments.
Lattuca suggests it is naïve to assume that many departments ‘share
areas of interest, methods, or even epistemological perspectives’
(2001, p. 3).
Students at the end of their 2nd year recognised this diversity but
viewed it as inconsistency rather than legitimate variation.
Conclusion
To align students notions of quality with those of academic staff then it
perhaps behoves us to:
a) consider epistemological development more intentionally
b) Support students to develop ‘epistemic fluency’ (Morrison and Collins,
1996)
c) be more explicit about the epistemic assumptions in play within
assessments that we set and mark.
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