Posters as an effective assessment tool for a capstone course
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ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION
Posters as an effective assessment tool for a capstone course David C. Gosselin 1 & Doug Golick 2
# AESS 2020
Abstract A rubric was developed to assess student posters as a mechanism to evaluate learning outcomes for a senior capstone course. The analytic rubric allows for the efficient and systematic collection of data from posters by students who worked across a variety of disciplines including the physical, biological, Earth sciences, social science, and the humanities. The rubric effectively addressed a fundamental assumption and requirement put forth during rubric development, that is, it needs to be relatively easy to use without training while at the same time producing consistent results across evaluators. The overall Chronbach’s alpha of 0.80 across semesters indicates acceptable inter-rater reliability. Data generated by assessment of 106 interdisciplinary posters indicates a general, yet not statistically significant, improvement, in total scores from the spring 2014 to spring 2018, documents student proficiency, and captures the variability in the quality of the various projects. The rubric was primarily developed as a tool to inform formative assessment, but it is also a teaching tool. Its use in providing feedback and as reflection tool enhances the learning experience for students and increases the impact of the senior thesis process on their professional development. The use of a student feedback questionnaire has informed reflective instructional practice. This resulted in an increased emphasis within the capstone course on the inclusion of reference citations, use of informal writing activities, and frequency of meetings with faculty mentors. The results from our approach should be encouraging to other interdisciplinary environmental studies and science programs that seek to efficiently and effectively impact student learning outcomes and evaluate the impact of course changes over several semesters. Keywords Assessment . Formative assessment . Higher education . Rubric development . Capstone course
Introduction Over the past 30 years, assessment has become an increasingly important part of the higher education landscape (Hawthorne et al. 2018; Kuh et al. 2015). Assessment activity is often conducted in response to the demands and expectations of stakeholders including policymakers, accreditors, and donors, among others. The foundation for assessment lies in fundamental questions that drive any research process whether it be for academic purposes, our personal lives, or an employer. That is, how can we improve what we know, what we
* David C. Gosselin [email protected] 1
Environmental Studies Program & School of Natural Resources, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 150 Hardin Hall 3310 Holdrege, Lincoln, NE 68583-0941, USA
2
Department of Entomology Entomology Hall, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68583-0816, USA
do, and how we do it? Educational assessment is about the systematic collection of data and use of information about educational programs to impr
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