Abstract:

One point of access to the labor market is the development of the Bachelor’s Final Projects (Trabajos de Fin de Grado; henceforth TFGs). Although work aimed at the design of products (for example, digital pedagogical content) is increasingly common in the field of Humanities, it is not the most common option chosen by Spanish students when planning a dissertation. In order to respond to the needs of digitization in the field of Humanities demanded by society, it is crucial to draw attention to applied TFGs to broaden student’s ways to enter the labour market once they graduate.

There are several factors that may explain this asymmetry such as the availability of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) for placements, student’s own interests, and/or the scope of the assessment criteria available for supervisors and committees, among others. In this paper we focus on the latter. In doing so, this paper seeks to review and improve the TFG evaluation rubrics to assess more effectively TFGs with a more applied profile in the area of English Studies and Education. We will investigate the ways in which the criteria and rubrics used to assess TFGs in Humanities are optimal to assess the quality and original contribution of final projects aimed at generating digital products (more specifically, pedagogical content to be released in digital platforms).

This work is framed within a teaching innovation project conducted during the academic year 2020-21 at the University of La Rioja (Spain). The project involved two steps: first, an applied TFG in English Studies was developed to design English as a Second Language (ESL) activities through augmented reality techniques; second, the assessment criteria and rubrics for TFGs in the field of Humanities were critically revised to analyse the areas in which they fell short to assess the TFG developed in the first stage. For the sake of practicality, we take the assessment materials used at the University of La Rioja as a case study.

This paper is structured as follows: we first provide a critical overview of the assessment criteria and rubrics used to assess TFGs in Humanities. Second, we identify aspects of the applied TFG developed in the first stage of the project that were not covered by the current assessment materials. Third, and in collaboration with the partners of the project (that include academics, students, a local SME, and a local administration), we propose to add several assessment criteria inspired by those used in assessment rubrics in engineering degrees that may help supervisors and committees to reach a more accurate and fair assessment of applied TFG in Humanities. To mention a few, we propose to add items such as the originality of the technical solution proposed, the ambition and relevance of the goals, and the capacity of the student to overcome the technical challenges encountered in the process. The new set of assessment criteria will raise students’ awareness of the needs of the business world and will help them become familiar with concepts such as dissemination, marketing and the social impact of their work.

Keywords:

TFG, digital products, assessment, rubric, augmented reality.