10 Here’s My Interpretation
Interpreting Student Work in Laboratory Assessments
By Kari-Draker Fortis, Fleming College
Introduction
What is the best way to assess student laboratories in an introductory science course? If you posed this question to a lab instructor, chances are they will have a lot to say and likely more questions than answers. Do you have students submit formal lab reports? Do you assess group work? Lab skills? How do you manage the marking of all those labs?
I have tackled these questions personally (often with a mountain of labs looming at my dining room table), with colleagues, and with larger groups of educators from college and university. One important theme that emerges from discussion is always the goal of the labs themselves. What do we want students to learn? What are the transferable skills that we want students to take away? These skills include lab-based competencies but also life skills. We want students to come prepared and ready to learn.
Introductory labs, regardless of discipline, follow the same general format. An overview of the lab objectives and background information is presented, with students completing some pre-work beforehand. The class engages in an experiment or set of lab activities that may involve hypothesis generation, recording and analyzing data, drawing conclusions, and answering questions. Commonly, student lab work is then submitted to their instructor for assessment.
I have come to the realization that the method of lab assessment has a significant impact on student preparedness, engagement, and overall effort. I can tell you what has not worked for me and for students in the past. In general, students learn less from a lab that is marked in agonizing detail. By this I mean that every question, table, graph, and labeling exercise is assessed and part-marks awarded. Student motivation can become more about the marks and less about the learning. Weaker students start to rely on stronger students for “wording” of answers, leading to a slippery slope of academic integrity issues. Other students rush through the work, often skipping steps, with little to no motivation to learn important concepts or lab skills. So in terms of interpreting student results, this method of lab marking, for me, does not accurately reflect what most students are learning. It provides little direct evidence of both lab competencies and understanding of lab content.
So again, I loop back to some familiar questions: What do we want students to learn? What are the transferable skills that we want students to take away?
What follows is an overview on what has been an interesting transition for me in evaluating student lab work. My hope is that an idea or two resonates and that, regardless of subject area, you are motivated to try something new in assessing students.
The Learners
I had an excellent opportunity to try out some new ideas for lab assessment when I redeveloped and delivered two core biology courses with Fleming