Marking Schemes for an Authentic Group Project, Trial by Statistics - A Case Study

Abstract

This study is an analysis of two different marking schemes for an ‘authentic’ Group Project worth 50% of a first year undergraduate university agribusiness course at The University of Queensland (UQ). A number of different marking schemes for the Group Project had been trialled over the last ten years in an effort to obtain an equitable method of marking individual students doing the Group Project. In 2019, a marking scheme for the Group Project that had been successfully used previously was advertised for 2019 prior to the commencement of semester.  However, issues during the semester within some of the Groups meant that students requested a Peer Evaluation marking scheme be employed. Eventually, for a class of 105 students, both marking schemes were used in assessing students’ work and a Pearson Correlation coefficient was run on the results of the final project mark to determine how equivalent the two marking schemes were. A good correlation (0.75) between the two schemes was returned, which was also reflected in a good correlation in the comparison for the final overall mark for the whole course (0.87). These statistical results suggest that there is a good argument for the existing marking scheme to continue to be used rather than a peer evaluation, which can have behavioural issues associated with it that are difficult to resolve.