Research methodology
المؤلف:
Nona Muldoon & Chrisann Lee
المصدر:
Enhancing Teaching and Learning through Assessment
الجزء والصفحة:
P100-C10
2025-06-16
596
Research methodology
The context of the study is a large, multi-campus regional university in Australia, where subjects are convened at a particular campus and convenors are responsible for the design of summative assessment, with some input from campus-based subject coordinators. The tutors, however, have no input in this process. The second author is a tutor in the subject, Accounting 1: Information for Business (ACC100). This is a compulsory subject for students studying for a business degree (or double degree such as Business/ Information Technology, Business/Human Movement). There were on average 150 students in lecture sessions and 20 students in each of the six to nine tutorial sessions in any given semester. The first author, as educational designer, has a role to play in academic development and became the tutor's mentor and 'critical friend' (Carr & Kemmis, 1986). The critical friend offered suggestions for the design of learning activities and formative assessment which enabled a close working relationship, offering alternative perspectives and support on pedagogical issues. This is an approach which McNiff (1988) recognized as valuable in action research projects.
Action research provided an appropriate framework for this exploratory study because in the educational context it is an approach that enables improvement of education through changes, i.e. 'by encouraging teachers to be aware of their own practice, to be critical of that practice and to be prepared to change it' (McNiff, 1988, p.4). Consistent with action research approaches, the processes undertaken in this project were cyclical and focused largely on reflecting and improving teaching practice to support quality learning.
Each phase of this project progressed through a systematic action research spiral of planning, acting, observing and reflecting (Carr & Kemmis, 1986). Planning was the stage when active learning strategies and formative assessment were progressively developed for deployment and testing in tutorial groups that the tutor managed, and later refined and used in the subject that she coordinated. Acting was the cyclical implementation stage, where students' reactions to classroom activities and assessment were carefully monitored. It was therefore important that the tutor was aware of the purpose of each learning activity, particularly formative assessment, and to evaluate learning outcomes accordingly. Strategies for data collection included observations recorded in the teaching journal, formative assessment which included student artifacts produced for the assessment, peer reviews by the critical friend and by selected academics from other disciplines, and informal and formal teaching evaluations by students. Developing reflective practice was a critical part of this research, in the sense that the cyclical data analysis and reflection paved the way for the ongoing development of new approaches for learning accounting concepts.
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