The epistemological beliefs of business

undergrads & their influence on satisfaction

with assessment and feedback

Berry O’Donovan, Oxford Brookes University

bodonovan@brookes.ac.uk

The seminal work of Perry (1970) on intellectual

development suggests that whilst at university students’

beliefs about the nature of knowledge, its acquisition and

form are likely to change and develop in complexity and

understanding.

Students interpret, or make meaning of, their educational

experience as a result of their assumptions about the

nature, limits and certainty of knowledge.

Baxter Magolda, 1992

Research Questions

What are the epistemic assumptions of business

undergraduates?

How do these influence students views on, and

satisfaction with, their experience of assessment and

feedback?

Methodology

Baxter Magolda’s (1992) Measure of Epistemological Reflection

Qualitative Research Instrument (27 questions) that seeks to determine

students’ epistemic assumptions over five core domains: their role as a

learner;

•the role of their peers;

•the role of tutors;

•the role of assessment;

•their beliefs about the nature of knowledge

Collectively termed by Baxter Magolda as ‘ways of knowing’.

.

Method or

‘if you want to go there, don’t start from here’

Completed by 200 of 557 business undergraduates in Week 2, Year 1

Completed by 19 students end of Year 2

Analysed by two researchers with categories and themes discussed and

agreed.

Two different stages:

•Categorisation: with training from Baxter Magolda, categorisation into

into four ‘ways of knowing’

•Thematic analysis on students’ assumptions about assessment and

feedback analysed within two fundamentally different perspectives --

‘dualistic’ and ‘relativistic’.

Ways of knowing of students on

entry to the programme

175 out of 200 holding primarily dualistic views

(categorised as ‘absolute’ or ‘transitional’)

Students assume:

• Knowledge to be certain and factual, right or wrong

• Authorities should know what is correct (authority dependence)

• Different views between experts are due to misinformation or

misunderstanding

• Transitional students dualistic as their prime perspective but viewed

knowledge as more or less certain in some subject domains

25 Students ‘contextual’ or ‘independent’ knowers

• ‘Relativism discovered’

• Contestability and uncertainty acknowledged

• There can be two or more legitimate explanations for a phenomena

Assessment and Feedback

assumptions of dualistic students

The primacy of assessment: good teaching as effective

preparation of assessment

Good teaching is making sure everyone knows and remembers enough for the

exam, don’t leave anything to chance

My A Level teacher was excellent, he was clear about the facts that students

should know for the exam and made sure that we knew them with lots of

examples and practice.

Too much discussion can be muddling, teach what we need to put in the

assignment.

Assessment and Feedback

assumptions of dualistic students

The necessity for absolute clarity on assessment

requirements, expectations and student achievement.

We need feedback on what we know. I want to know I have learnt the key

points before the exams.

I prefer coursework to exams, but teachers must be clear about what they

want me to write, not just a few vague sentences but specific outlines of

what is required

I need to be told the best way of doing an assignment then it is up to me to

follow this

Assessment and Feedback

assumptions of dualistic students

Good students should be rewarded… it is only fair

Students may not be successful in a piece of work but may have tried really

hard which has to be worth something.

Effort should be rewarded. I want my work marked by someone who knows

I have been in class and tried hard. It’s not fair if someone gets good marks

who hasn’t been coming to class or doing the work

Assessment and Feedback

assumptions of dualistic students

Assessors should know the student whose work they’re

marking

Teachers who know that you have tried your best and a good student

Very important for a teacher to mark who know his student makes effort and

tries hard

Seminar tutors who can judge how much a student put effort and is willing

to study and be a good student

Assessment and Feedback

assumptions of dualistic students

Authority dependence and irrelevance of peer contribution

I am worried that you are asking us how we should be assessed. The

teacher evaluates what we have learnt. What other way can there be?

The teacher is the expert, not the students and should mark work.

It’s the tutors work to mark students work. It’s part of their work.

Assessment and Feedback

assumptions of dualistic

students

Feedback as specific and corrective

‘Uni is new to me and I need to know how I am doing by having my

work corrected

The teacher needs to correct work so we know our mistakes

‘I want to know that I am doing my work correctly

Assessment and Feedback

assumptions of relativistic

students

• Assessment should involve more than one marker

and discussion with the student

Assessment and feedback should be an interactive process with the

teacher and student

Members of staff and yourself [should assess]

Relevant tutors mainly, [should assess] though student input may

be beneficial so I can explain why I have written the essay in a

certain way

Assessment and Feedback

assumptions of relativistic

students

• Assessment should be a relational process

The teacher/lecturer I suppose, but how does she/he know who ‘I AM’

[student’s own capitalisation] there’s so many of us.

Your personal tutor should be involved in assessment so they can judge

your overall progress and if there are inconsistencies

Personal tutors who know you and can track your progress over the degree

• Feedback as dialogue

Personal tutors and module leaders should mark and feedback on work in

discussion with students

At this level I hope to discuss my work with tutors not just get a few lines

[of feedback]

Teachers and pupils need to discuss together to a certain extent to see

where improvements could be made etc.

Assessment and Feedback

assumptions students end of 2nd

year

Only 19 usable responses

Difficult to categorise students maybe discovering relativism but

finding this very uncomfortable. No categorisation undertaken.

Themes:

• Recognition of diversity and a consequent necessity to

approach each assessment/module as unique

• The important of taking a pragmatic and instrumental

approach to assessment

• Suppression of voice and mimicry

• The importance of knowing and being known by assessors

Assessment and Feedback

assumptions students end of

2nd

year

Recognition of diversity and a consequent necessity to

approach each assessment/module as unique

Generally as a rule of thumb there are no right or wrong answers in

marketing, it is much more about justifying the decisions that you

make, but in Methods of Enquiry [second year research methods

module] you have to pick the correct way.

I have learnt from experience not to rely on anything I learnt from

business to an economics module.

My experience has been that different tutors want very different things

in assessment. You have to work out in each module over again

what is really required

Assessment and Feedback

assumptions students end

of 2nd

year

The importance of taking a pragmatic and instrumental

approach to assessment

I will readily accept facts, I have less faith in concepts and theories which are

often disproved, different tutors have different viewpoints and sometimes

you can not guess which one they want.

Because they are probably both right [two different explanations for the

same phenomena], student should try and guess which one is needed to

pass the module. BE PRAGMATIC! [student’s own capitalisation]

There may be no single correct way of doing things but they [tutors] should

all say the same thing so as not to confuse students before the exam if

they want students to do well.

Assessment and Feedback

assumptions students end

of 2nd

year

Suppression of voice and mimicry

Do not write what you want to write, write what the lecturer wants to read.

Some tutors want particular theories and explanations. We need to find out what

they want.

In some modules you have to think about things, but in others they just want you

put down stuff from the lecture, you have to guess

The importance of knowing and being known by

assessors

Seminar tutors should be the only ones who assess me. Many times they [tutors]

don’t say the same things. I feel it is unfair to be assessed by someone who

hasn’t taught me

Discussion

The Tyranny of Student Satisfaction…

Meeting student expectations matters more than ever within an

increasingly competitive and commercial HE sector

To attract and retain students ‘universities are compelled to pursue market

orientation strategies placing greater emphasis on meeting student

expectations’ (Arambewela and Hall, 2013, p. 972)

Epistemic assumptions influence students perspectives on the quality of

learning teaching and assessment processes (Baxter Magolda, 1992;

Chan 2003; Hofer 2004; Lucas & Meyer 2005; Cano 2005: Elby, 2009)

Intellectual development involves challenging the belief systems of

students and this can cause discomfort (Piaget, 1953; Mezirow, 1991;

Kember, 1997)

(

Discussion (2)

Sadler (1989, 2009) suggests that an indispensible condition for

students to improve their academic performance is to for them to

hold the same conceptions of quality as held by their tutors.

Such notions of quality not only affect student achievement but also

their perceptions of quality of learning, teaching and assessment

(Baxter Magolda, 1992; Chan, 2003; Hofer, 2004; Lucas and

Meyer, 2005) and frequently find expression in student

satisfaction surveys.

Discussion (3)

Perceptions of quality revolve around epistemic assumptions and

these vary between disciplines and department and even within

departments.

Lattuca suggests it is naïve to assume that many departments ‘share

areas of interest, methods, or even epistemological perspectives’

(2001, p. 3).

Students at the end of their 2nd year recognised this diversity but

viewed it as inconsistency rather than legitimate variation.

Conclusion

To align students notions of quality with those of academic staff then it

perhaps behoves us to:

a) consider epistemological development more intentionally

b) Support students to develop ‘epistemic fluency’ (Morrison and Collins,

1996)

c) be more explicit about the epistemic assumptions in play within

assessments that we set and mark.