Deakin University
Browse

Improving on- and off-campus student performance in structural mechanics

conference contribution
posted on 2005-01-01, 00:00 authored by W Hall, Clive Ferguson, T Jones, Stuart Palmer
This paper investigates the performance of 329 (173 on- and 186  off-campus) students enrolled in two structural mechanics units at Deakin University, a leader in engineering distance-education in Australia. The two units experience unacceptably high rates of failure. An analysis of the assignment, laboratory and examination marks is presented. Consideration is also given to the total marks. The results show that on-campus students perform better in structural mechanics than their off-campus counterparts. Plots of the student performance distributions for the three assessment methods are provided (for each unit) and high failure rates are linked to low examination marks. Students tend to perform best in assignments and worst in examinations. Parametric statistical tests show a correlation between the continuous assessment and examination marks. To motivate students to fully participate in continuous assessment tasks the authors therefore propose several changes to the assessment criteria and marking schemes.

History

Title of proceedings

ASEE/AaeE 2005 : Program and proceedings : 4th ASEE/AaeE Global Colloquium on Engineering Education

Event

ASEE/AaeE Global Colloquium on Engineering Education (4th : 2005 : Sydney, N.S.W.)

Publisher

School of Engineering, The University of Queensland

Location

Sydney, N.S.W.

Place of publication

Brisbane, Qld

Start date

2005-09-26

End date

2005-09-29

ISBN-13

9781864998283

ISBN-10

1864998288

Language

eng

Publication classification

E1 Full written paper - refereed

Copyright notice

2005, Australasian Association for Engineering Education

Editor/Contributor(s)

D Radcliffe, J Humphries

Usage metrics

    Research Publications

    Categories

    No categories selected

    Keywords

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC