Improving on- and off-campus student performance in structural mechanics
conference contribution
posted on 2005-01-01, 00:00authored byW 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