Assessment hurdles in core first year courses in Australian universities: are we trying to catch out students?

Generally, some courses in a degree program, but not all, have a hurdle, threshold or minimum pass requirement, which is often described as a condition that must be met by a student in order to pass a course. As assessment drives learning for most university learners, and first year experience is critical for retention and success, understanding the prevalence, implicit purpose and practice of hurdles is important for educators. Our study makes a useful contribution to this sparse body of literature. We reviewed descriptions of hurdle requirements in the assessment policy/procedure statements across a purposeful sample of eight Australian public universities and the published handbook entries of 187 first year core courses in two large programs in those universities. While only a quarter of the courses explicitly mentioned any hurdle requirement, we found inconsistencies and arbitrariness in the practice of implementing hurdle requirements. Despite explicit definitions of hurdle requirements in university policy/procedure statements, we found that several courses did not comply fully with their respective university statements. We draw upon this analysis to discuss institutional and disciplinary cultures associated with hurdle requirements in the first year and potential implications of these practices in scaffolding student learning and success.