Using meta-reflection to improve learning and throughput: redesigning assessment procedures in a political science course on power

Abstract

The aim of this article is to contribute to the discussion on how examinations can be designed to enhance students’ learning and increase throughput in terms of the number of students who sit, and pass, the course examination. The context of the study is a basic level political science course on power analysis, which initially suffered from low throughput. The contribution of the article is to demonstrate that no other changes to the course than the introduction of an element of meta-reflection in the take-home examination – a so-called ‘reflection exercise’ – helped increase throughput by 70–80%. The aggregated performance of the students was thus significantly enhanced after they were explicitly encouraged to meta-reflect on problems posed in the take-home examination, and on different strategies for tackling these problems. The introduction of another meta-reflection exercise in the mandatory seminars did not further increase throughput, but made a qualitative difference in terms of the positive feedback that students received on their work.

Keywords:

• throughput problem
• higher education
• meta-reflection
• political science
• power

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank the editors and anonymous reviewers of Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education for very helpful comments on earlier versions of this article.