Assessing participation skills: online discussions with peers

Abstract

Many tertiary-level courses assess students’ participation in tutorial or online discussions. However, in educational and pedagogical research literature, criteria for assessing students’ skills in engaging with peers remain unclear. This article describes an online assignment with a set of participation criteria and a method for assessing the quality of students’ interactions with peers. The assignment focuses on students’ ability to utilise their critical thinking skills while engaging with peers on a particular topic. This includes abilities such as responding to criticism, justifying one’s view and contributing to discussion. While the assignment is designed for a critical thinking course in a philosophy curriculum, the method and participation criteria may be adapted for assessment in other discipline areas.

Keywords:

• assessing participation
• peer learning
• online assignment
• critical thinking

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to acknowledge the funding and support of the Faculty of Excellence Initiative at The University of New South Wales and staff of the Learning and Teaching Unit who participated in the initiative, especially Ms Keri Moore. I would like to acknowledge the contribution of Lynn McDonald (www.infomanagerplus.com.au) for her assistance in the project.

Notes

1. Although this course is taught within the Philosophy discipline, students were from a range of faculties including Arts and Social Sciences (52%), Science (33%), Commerce (7%), Engineering and Law (3% each).

2. The grading criteria for Stage (b) focused on a student’s ability to: demonstrate understanding of the topic; express ideas clearly; structure arguments cogently; and exercise analytic and critical skills (i.e. to ‘stand back’ a little from your own view and provide good reasons for it).