DESIGN OF A RUBRIC FOR EVALUATING THE UNDERGRADUATE FINAL YEAR PROJECT; WRITTEN REPORT AND ORAL DEFENSE

This paper describes the design and applicability of a rubric as an evaluation tool for the undergraduate final year project (FYP) at the Faculty of Experimental Sciences (University of Jaén, Spain). This FYP represents the culmination of the learning process and its aim is to promote the use of the acquired skills. Some of these skills are academic and related to the particular discipline, others are much broader (e.g. efficiency in collecting and handing information, interpretation and discussion of results, or production of reports), all are useful for future employment.

According to our current legislation, three different modalities of FYP are possible: experimental study, bibliographical review and research project. Students develop their own FYP under the guidance of a tutor. When the work is completed, it must be presented as a final written report. Finally each student must defend their FYP that will be evaluated by a three-member committee. The defense will be performed in public session, by means of the oral exhibition of the contents and the answers to possible questions formulated by the committee members. This committee must make a decision taking into account the quality of the written report itself and the defense. The items to be evaluated are the formal aspects, organization, structure and quality of the written report, oral defense of the work, knowledge of the addressed subject matter, clarity in the presentation, capability of synthesis and the answers to the committee´s questions.

Due to the number of students at the Faculty, several evaluation committees must act simultaneously. A rubric has been designed to assist the committee members in the assessment. The aim of this rubric is improve the consistency and objectivity of the assessment and help to homogenize the evaluation criteria and to avoid discrepancies between the different committees. At the conclusion of the defense, each committee member fills out the rubric sheet and the committee chair will summarize the results, averaging the three responses into one final mark.

Finally, in order to evaluate the satisfaction level of the committee members, assessment questionnaires have been designed to identify possible gaps and propose future improvements.