ASSESSMENT OF ORAL PRESENTATIONS IN SCIENCE DEGREES BY USING A RUBRIC-BASED SYSTEM

A working group of teachers belonging to the degrees in Food Science and Technology and Chemistry of the Faculty of Science of the University of Burgos is involved in the design of adequate activities and the development of evaluation tools for the implementation of different transversal competences in a coordinated manner.

Currently, the group is implicated in the implementation of the above-mentioned evaluation tools. In this communication, we want to present the card for the oral presentation activity as well as the results obtained with regard to the application of a rubric for the assessment of this activity in the subject ‘Design and development of meat products (DDMP)’ which is part of the Food Science and Technology Degree Syllabus.

The mentioned card includes the activity description (name of the activity, subject chosen to carry out the activity, objectives and description, main competence addressed and other competences developed), time frame (teacher: 5 h; students: 2 h. and 15 min at class + 10 h personal work), materials (Bibliography related to the topic, rubric for the activity assessment), infrastructures (class with audiovisual devices, personal computer and internet connexion…) and evaluation procedure (description of the assessment which is proposed to be performed by the teacher and also by mean of peer review).

With regard to the rubric, it consist of 6 different evaluation criteria, which deal with aspects such as speaking features, presentation contents, speech efficiency and general quality of the presentation. Moreover, every criteria was evaluated taking into account three main levels according to the following numeric grades: low (0-1), medium (2-3) and high (4-5). Concise descriptions for every criteria-level box were included in the rubric table. The students were provided with the rubric beforehand in order to make the evaluation process as impartial as possible and clarify the minima standards needed to get a good mark in the activity.

The rubric was used by both the teacher and the students, since 20% of the final mark in the activity was given by the students according to a peer review system. The results expressed in the 0-10 scale for the final marks fall within the range between 5,76 and 8,17, with standard deviations of 0,02-0,99.

Finally, the students were encouraged to take part in a survey to assess different aspect such as the degree of acquisition of the competence, the satisfaction degree with the activity, the usefulness of the rubric, and the methodology as a whole.

The rubric itself, as well as the results obtained by using it and the results obtained from the above-mentioned survey will be presented and discussed in detail in the paper.

Acknowledgements:
We thank financial support by Vicerrectorado de Profesorado y de Personal de Administración y Servicios de la Universidad de Burgos (Proyecto de Innovación y Mejora Docente 2012/13).