More Effective Assessment

Abstract

Assessment effectiveness is an important topic for all educators. This study considers how assessment can be made more effective by addressing plagiarism by students in international undergraduate programs in Vietnam. The study included a change in assessment away from written reports and towards student presentations. 107 Vietnamese students, across two semesters, studying a BTEC HND business management subject in an international program at a large government-run university were assigned to give weekly group presentations rather than write 3,000 word reports. The first semester results indicate that this change practically eliminated plagiarism and improved student learning (measured by grades) by 33%. The second semester added local language tutorial sessions and improved student learning by 70% from the pre-study levels. Additionally, students reported greater satisfaction with the new assessment design.