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Assessments in Capstone Courses

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  • “The correlation between student self-assessment scores and faculty assessment scores indicates differentiation between high and low ... performers.” (p.194) “Students who scored themselves high also received high scores by their faculty facilitator, while those who scored themselves lower also received lower scores from faculty.” (p.195) “Although student characteristics of age, gender, and GPA at graduation did not influence self-assessment, females consistently score themselves lower than males.” (p.196)

  • “Case studies were designed to represent real-life situations that students were likely to encounter during their careers, either playing a patient as ... an actor or performing a caring role as a nurse. Assessments for the capstone simulation were formative, and involved the students engaging in self-reflection and peer review. Videos were available to enhance the self-reflection and peer-review process. Evaluation was undertaken through verbal feedback during debrief, written feedback, video footage and nursing student and acting student peer review.” (p.22)

  • “...It is clear that student learning improved significantly through use of the analytical rubric because students (1) were given the opportunity to ... incorporate instructor feedback following the group meetings; (2) were required to reflect on their learning (metacognition); and (3) gained a clearer understanding of assignment expectations and how they link to course learning objectives...The analytical rubric and its application during the group meetings showed that students level of understanding ranged from good to excellent on most of the criteria...Besides the high level of student learning, another positive aspect to the rubric was the ease with which students could be graded and the objectivity and defensibility of the assigned grades. Students appreciated that the rubric provided a clear basis for their grades.” (p.229-230)

  • “Our findings suggest that purposefully designing assignments to allow students to use the four skills (theoretical, applied, practical, and... reflection) can be a useful way of measuring what students are learning. The information gained from this approach can be used to determine if students are learning the skills necessary to do well in the practice of management.” (p.765)

  • Approaches to evaluating individual students within the group include student distribution of grade points within a group (peer evaluation), peer ...evaluation of project tasks and group maintenance tasks (peer evaluation), multiplying the group grade by an individual weighting (instructor/self peer/group evaluation), group grade plus/minus individual contribution grade (instructor/self/peer/group evaluation), shared group grade with instructor intervention where necessary (instructor evaluation).

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