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Honour thesis assessment: the role of guidelines in achieving inter-rater agreement
Citation
Henderson, AD and Guijt, M and Breadmore, MC and Carew, ALJ and Guijt, RM, Honour thesis assessment: the role of guidelines in achieving inter-rater agreement, Proceedings of 20th Annual Conference for the Australasian Association for Engineering Education, 6-9 December 2009, The University of Adelaide, pp. 185-192. ISBN 1876346604 (2009) [Refereed Conference Paper]
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Copyright Statement
Copyright 2009 The authors.
Official URL: http://aaee.com.au/conferences/AAEE2009/PDF/AUTHOR...
Abstract
Engineering honours projects are often self selected or negotiated by students
to be in areas of their own interest. While this encourages motivation and engagement in
a self directed research project, it also considerably increases the diversity of honours
project types. Such project diversity raises questions about the most suitable form of
guidelines to provide good inter-rater agreement. Project diversity can also result in
academics assessing projects outside their primary area of research specialisation. This
is particularly true of transdisciplinary projects that cross over conventional discipline
boundaries. To investigate these issues, a team of academics from two Schools at the
University of Tasmania assessed a collection of engineering theses using a variety of
different guidelines. All guidelines were found to produce poor inter-rater agreement,
however inter-rater agreement was improved when both assessors were of the same
discipline. An account of the academics’ comments on use of the guidelines reveals
conflicting opinions of good and bad features. Guidelines that were viewed as easy to use
and less subjective were found not to substantially improve inter-rater agreement. The
implications of these findings are discussed and suggestions made in relation to
improving assessment guidelines for honours theses.
Item Details
| Item Type: | Refereed Conference Paper |
|---|---|
| Research Division: | Education |
| Research Group: | Specialist Studies in Education |
| Research Field: | Education Assessment and Evaluation |
| Objective Division: | Education and Training |
| Objective Group: | Other Education and Training |
| Objective Field: | Education and Training Theory and Methodology |
| UTAS Author: | Henderson, AD (Dr Alan Henderson) |
| UTAS Author: | Guijt, M (Mr Marc Guijt) |
| UTAS Author: | Breadmore, MC (Professor Michael Breadmore) |
| UTAS Author: | Carew, ALJ (Dr Anna Carew) |
| UTAS Author: | Guijt, RM (Dr Rosanne Guijt) |
| ID Code: | 59954 |
| Year Published: | 2009 |
| Deposited By: | Austn Centre for Research in Separation Science |
| Deposited On: | 2009-12-23 |
| Last Modified: | 2014-12-21 |
| Downloads: | 523 View Download Statistics |
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