online case study assessment
The Impact of Online Case Study Assessments on Student Learning
Online case study assessments have gained considerable value as an educational tool, allowing students to take on the role of an investigator examining a problem. This allows them to develop their critical thinking and problem-solving skills and test their knowledge. Online case study assessments provide the opportunity for students to explore the real-life application of their academic knowledge in an authentic context and develop the skills required for evaluating a company’s financial health. This study explores the influence of online case study assessment tools in student learning in a university course.
Online case study assessments provide an opportunity for students to apply their academic knowledge and demonstrate their skills in the area of business strategy. Specifically, they are asked to evaluate the financial health of a company. The online case study will examine the impact of students undertaking an online case study assessment as part of their course in Corporate Finance using accounting and corporate finance theories. To that end, the following will be explored: The nature and effect of using online case study assessments will be reported. In particular, students’ perceptions of online case study assessments will be included; The amount of guidance provided to students on completing the case study will be explained; The findings of the online case report and relevant marks will be discussed.
In the educational setting, case studies involve students taking on the role of investigator and as such conducting further research on a ‘situation’ outside the classroom environment. Outcomes from case studies, as a result, will invariably be influenced by student use of core academic texts as well as additional data sources found primarily on the Internet, company websites and publications. Educational advantages for students in undertaking case studies are based, amongst others, on the capacity to better appreciate the linkages between the theory and practice of the situation under scrutiny; the necessity to sift through data in a critical way and develop the capacity to see and present different points of view; and the development of communication and problem-solving skills. More generally, the classroom teaching value of introducing case studies to students is based on the active learning and realistic ‘workplace’ scenarios that can be imparted.
Online case study assessments are a valuable resource in education. Research has shown significant educational benefits from their use. Online case study assessments integrate digital technologies and can provide feedback to students far more quickly and efficiently than a traditional written case study. Consequently, they can enhance the learning practices of students. The use of online case study assessments also builds the students’ digital literacy and can help them learn how to use assessment analytics to inform their own studies. Due to the efficiency relative to traditional case studies, they can also provide benefits for teaching staff. This is because they can involve less time to develop and oversee, and may provide more consistent feedback between markers due to the structure of automated quizzes.
There are many benefits that can be created from the simple implementation of an online case study assessment. Firstly, they can create more effective feedback loops by producing feedback from the system relatively quickly and with reduced redundancy. This can provide students with more opportunities to learn and study material while it is still fresh in their mind. Online tools can help reduce human bias and reinforce a focus on the intended learning outcomes. Finally, students receive quick automated feedback, encrypted and secure. This formative feedback is important and is further discussed in this paper.
The challenges associated with case study assessments – such as potential breaches or students inventing data – can certainly be amplified by moving such assessments online. However, if such challenges are overcome, then the case study assessment as practiced online can enhance learning as it is both authentic and relevant for student learning experience. In practice, education institutions and developers of professional assessment frameworks and standards need to carefully consider these issues when deciding how to approach and manage authentic case study assessment tasks faced with challenges.
Stakeholders in business, governments, and the market for online and professional university education have increasingly clamored for more accurate, fair, and authentic assessments of the learning and processing of graduates. Case studies in the form of assessment of students are used by universities to test theory in practice in a learning environment. In this chapter, we outline a range of underlying fraud vulnerabilities with case study assessment (both online and face to face). We identify some of the technical solutions to those fraud vulnerabilities as have been developed by case study innovators, standard setters, and education institutions. The development of a rich understanding of case study in authentic assessment takes time and considerable investment, resulting in a complex analysis of a series of specific institutional, regulatory, management, teaching, learning, and educational practitioner issues.
4.1. Strategies of Designing an Online Case Study Assessment 4.1.1. Be authentic. 4.1.2. Use real-world, multimedia learning environments. This should involve, for instance, the use of primary sources, video documents, and rich illustrations. 4.1.3. Create an engaging, complex, and ill-structured problem. 4.1.4. Use some improvisation. This is intended to help students deal with ambiguous and ill-defined situations. 4.1.5. Be integrative. One option in designing a case study assessment would be to combine previously separate tasks of asking for, say, a traditional research paper and a presentation on the same topic, forming a wider intellectual exercise. 4.2. Standards for Administering Online Case Study Assessments 4.2.1. Consistently use case study assessments. It is recommended to administer case study assessment at several levels of the academic program. 4.2.2. Develop a common scoring guide. The scoring guide should specify the specific criteria you will use in grading case study skills, and provide assessment-level descriptors of varying quality (such as exemplary, proficient, developing, and inadequate).
In light of the above-mentioned strategies and standards for creating and applying case study assessments, it is recommended that educators should: – Use case studies where they are appropriate and make academic and intellectual sense. Cases should only be used where the learning objectives express the aim to situate, connect, and apply student knowledge and thinking processes. Any design of a case study assessment should begin with the question: Why use a case?
This paper explored the impact of online case study assessment on student learning from three perspectives. Firstly, we looked at whether the application of traditional case study assessment could improve students’ learning beyond using the essay. Secondly, we explored whether online case study assessment improved students’ learning over the traditional case study. Finally, we looked at the impact of providing feedback on online case study assessment. Our findings suggest that the online case study and case study assessed in an exam did not provide a significant improvement in student learning. There was evidence of a firmer understanding acquired by the overall improved performance of students in final exam results when that material was assessed.
We also found that the provision of marking criteria for online case study assessment did not improve student learning, as the assessment of the method was not significantly different for the students that received marking criteria compared with those that did not. In conclusion, this research has suggested that online case study assessment can be used as an alternative to traditional case study assessment. Students’ experience of the assessment is reported as enjoyable despite perceived increases in workload related to these activities. Potential avenues for further exploration include the development of methodological considerations of student learning that may be missed with large class sizes, and the qualitative data reducing the diverse experience of students to a few overarching themes might be further investigated through a grounded-theory approach. Additionally, it would be useful to ascertain the longer-term effects of conative constructs on the development of professional competencies in comparison to the impact of cognitive constructs on those same competencies. Other research avenues in the future would include examining programme and course of study influences on student learning and professional competency development, as well as the impact of purposeful pedagogical strategies on student learning.
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