EVALUATION OF A PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING ASSIGNMENT USING AN ORAL COMMUNICATION ASSESSMENT RUBRIC

The incorporation of problem-based learning assignments into undergraduate courses has been a high priority in the School of Geography and Geology at McMaster University. Evaluation of these assignments requires assessment of material presented in written, oral and/or visual forms. Oral presentations were found to be particularly difficult to assess in a consistent and constructive manner and required a new evaluation procedure. The second year ‘Earth History’ course at McMaster includes a problem-based inquiry-based assignment in which teams of students design their own island and reconstruct its geologic history. Each team must include a number of igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rock types, fossil assemblages, geologic structures and unconformities in their island. They have four weeks to complete the project and must orally ‘present’ their island to the class and instructors (two instructors and three teaching assistants) for final assessment. In order to effectively evaluate the oral presentations an assessment rubric was developed. A rubric is a table that combines required attributes of the skill being evaluated with corresponding proficiency levels. To be effective, a rubric must be easy to use, flexible, apply to all aspects of oral communication, provide feedback, and have consistent results between different evaluators. Initial testing of the oral communication rubric on the Earth History ‘island’ assignment shows that it fulfills most of these criteria, although evaluator consistency was not fully achieved. However, the rubric did help to identify common evaluator problems and biases, thus improving quality and potential for consistent assessment in the future. Development of rubrics for other criteria to be evaluated in problem-solving assignments (e.g. written communication, team work skills) will improve the effectiveness and flexibility of assessment procedures and may broaden the scope of the assignments.