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

2. Background to Award HND Business Y1 introduced last year (2014-15)
HND Business Y2 introduced this year ( )
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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

7. 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)

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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.

12. 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.