Abstract:

The current context focused on the European Higher Education Area involves a redefinition of some old teaching methods, too focused on the lecture-type classes, towards a greater degree of participation by the students. This restructuring process necessarily implies a conversion of the University-Reform Law credits (LRU, according to the Spanish acronym) to the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS). Within such context, the implementation of new policies and grading methods, oriented to a more integral examination of the skills acquired by the students, play a key role.
This paper presents the results obtained from the implementation of a new examination policy and grading method in the course of Economic Structure of Spain during the academic year 2009/2010. This bachelor course has optional character (i.e. the students can decide whether to study it or not) and it covers four months within the Bachelor degree in Labour Relations at the University of Granada (Spain). The first step was to develop a teaching guide of the course, in which we set out in a detailed way the number of hours corresponding to each of the tasks (theoretical and practical) assigned to the students. Additionally, this guide contains a complete temporal schedule or planning of these activities. Taking this guide as starting point, a new examination policy and grading method was introduced. Students were offered the possibility to choose, during the first two weeks of the course, among three different types of grading methods, each one involving a different degree of continuous examination. This variety provides a huge array of advantages. For instance, it facilitates a high flexibility, which allows the examination method to be adapted to the heterogeneous profiles of students existing in this Bachelor degree.
This paper is structured into five different sections. The first section constitutes an introduction to the topic under study: the implementation of a new examination policy and grading method in the subject of Economic Structure of Spain. The second section analyzes the conversion towards the ECTS system in the Bachelor degree of Labour Relations. Then, the third section focuses on the implementation of ECTS credit for the subject of Economic Structure of Spain, paying special attention to a detailed description of the new examination policy and grading method applied in the course. Section fourth represents an empirical investigation of the results derived out of this new grading method during the academic year 2009/2010. Finally, the fifth section discusses the results of the implementation of this examination policy and grading method, summarizes the main conclusions and points out some lines for future research.

Keywords:

Grading methodology, flexibility, Higher Education Area.