Online Assessment: Informing Practice in Tertiary Science Education

Method

Students drawn from four course modules in Biology, Chemistry, Medicine and Nursing at the University of Dundee formed the cases within the sample. A mixed-methods research design drew on both quantitative and qualitative techniques to facilitate in-depth exploration of student experiences of online assessment. The research design was influenced to an extent by methodological approaches use by others (see for example, Creanor et al. 2006; Cassady and Johnson, 2002) to support an interpretative phenomenological analysis approach. Methods involved the collection of objective and quantifiable data through screen capture of student completion of a formative online assessment task, and interpretative analysis of interview data to gain an insight into the students’ experiences of these tasks. The interpretative results were subjectively negotiated and emerged through a process of interpretation which sought to establish the meaning that specific experiences or events held for individuals within the sample (Smith & Osborn, 2003). In order to cast some light on the impact of online assessment on student levels of cognitive test anxiety, a modified version of the Cognitive Test Anxiety Scale created by Cassady and Johnson (2002) was utilised with the limited alterations allowing comparison of results with previous findings. Importantly, the instruments selected and the approaches adopted have been adapted to provide as rich an insight as possible into the intentions behind student actions during online assessment events and the impact of online assessment on their learning.