Delivering new Enhanced Assessments Business Culture and Strategy (BCS) Behavioural Skills for Business (BSB) Lesley Johnson Programme Leader – Business Borders College

Background to Award HND Business Y1 introduced last year (2014-15) HND Business Y2 introduced this year (2015-16) Used Enhanced Assessments for all subjects on offer across both years Year 1 - Law, Economics Year 2 - Graded Unit 2, Research Methods, Business Culture and Strategy and Behavioural Skills for Business

Why use these Assessments? Reduced number of assessments Reduced amount of time spent working on assessments, marking and remediation More time to explore and discuss these topics Gave students the experience of coursework and exams like University Reduced number of assessments - from 6 to 2 – now one piece of coursework and exam only

Do they meet an Acceptable Standard? All knowledge and understanding for both units covered in teaching materials Combined and reduced assessment approach Sampling approach taken in the exam 20 multiple-choice questions covers content of both units 2 essays from choice of 3 (one essay for each outcome of BSB) Coursework covers all criteria of outcomes 1 and 5 of BCS

From this information on Exam Papers 1 and 2 (on next slide): Essay questions cover all 3 outcomes of BSB Multiple Choice questions and Multiple Response questions used and these cover BCS and also some elements of BSB M/C and M/R questions involve the candidate making judgements, assessing alternative choices and require the candidate to really know and understand the concepts to be able to apply them to given situations

Teaching Schedule 3 hour block, all year, same lecturer Started with Organisation and Environment and Managing Change Used Royal Mail case study Submitted Coursework before Christmas All students passed - 2 required remediation to pass Now teaching BCS (2, 3, 4) and BSB (all outcomes) Prelim - week 30 (5 May) Exam – week 32 (19 May)

Delivery of Assessment Students given coursework with Assessor guidance 3-hour session allocated to assessment 2 weeks later Rest of assessment completed in student’s own time Submission deadline 4 weeks after issue date

Student Feedback Liked it being a real company and there was a lot of material out there to research Daunting at first, but once I got started working on this I really enjoyed it It was an interesting topic and I leaned a lot about it. Appreciated reduction in overall assessment workload Good sense of achievement when completed Involved a lot of background reading surrounding case study Found the research challenging but enjoyable Felt motivated with the graded result

Assessor feedback Assessment time did not overshadow teaching and learning time Easier to mark using marking guide, grading each element Students had demonstrated more initiative and answers were varied Able to reward students who gave more in depth responses No remediation and double-marking due to threshold pass mark Able to reward students who gave more in depth responses - evidence of greater research and understanding of the issues No remediation and double-marking due to threshold pass mark - but Assessment does allow this if they fail for coursework only

Useful tips in preparation for exam Give students topics to revise each week – in class 20 minutes free-writing exercise on specific question – build up revision notes Assessor marked exercises, peer review, used for revision and exam practice Students write their own multiple-choice questions and share with others (Quiz on Moodle) Using case studies from Times 100 and texts books that have more content and explanation of topics Encourage discussion around theorists Free-writing – also good for practicing for University-style exam. HND Business programme at Borders College has an articulation route where our students can apply to become Associate Heriot-Watt students and have guaranteed places on to Year 3 of the BA (Hons) Business Administration degree programme provided they meet the necessary grades in their Graded Units across both years of study. Heriot-Watt indicated at their last Borders College visit that one of the things that students find difficult is adjusting to the exam conditions of writing solidly for 2 hours. Free-writing exercises not only help them prepare revision notes regularly during their studies, but also help them to get used to hand-writing their responses in exam-like conditions (ie, no referring to their notes, etc). Discussion – encourages them to articulate their thoughts, builds confidence with speaking in public and allows them to explore their own and other’s opinions.

Conclusion Alternative Assessment pack provides all required information 72% of students passed coursework first time, rest of group passed following minor remediation Allows for more time to be spent in class teaching and learning University-style assessment with grading – better prepared students Recommend this approach (reduce assessment workload and time spent marking and re-marking) University-style assessment with grading: I found this easier than competence-based decision-making. A student may have an excellent piece of work but not give the required number of examples as per the Unit Specification and require remediation but this type of marking means that the student can be graded accordingly and not require to remediate the coursework. Less extra assessment work for the candidate and less marking for the Assessor.