Abstract:

The intense focus on high grade achievement by undergraduate students around the world but especially among business school students in Asian countries can lead to outcomes that are not aligned with the broad graduate learning outcomes desired by the University leadership. A key role that faculty members play in reducing grade pressure, and the resultant stress from this grade focus is through the design and communication of the grade components (such as individual assignments, group projects, and exams).

We assess how the number, weights and design of assessment components, and communication mechanisms such as transparency of grading process, rubrics, and feedback mechanisms affect academic stress and hence academic choices, such as majors, and courses.

Four focus groups with student participants, fifteen in-depth interviews with faculty members, and a follow-up survey of business school students in a Singaporean University were conducted.

Among the key findings of the study are:
(1) in choosing a course, the assessed likelihood of getting a good grade and the workload are more important than personal interest and relevance of the course to one’s career
(2) while experiencing the course, the sources of stress are very different for quantitative courses versus qualitative courses.

For quantitative courses, students prefer heavier weights for individual homework spread throughout the course and lower weights on class participation. For qualitative courses, students prefer a higher weight on class participation and an individual project. Interestingly, the preferred weight on a final exam is a little higher in quantitative courses. In addition, the instructor’s teaching ability and making available practice questions for the final exam are more important for quantitative courses than for qualitative courses. Across both types of courses, the least preferred distribution of course weights, is one that has very few components (e.g. just three components – class participation, group project and final exam).

The study demonstrates that the specifics of the grading mechanism as implemented through the distribution of course weights play an important role in both how students choose courses, as well as how they experience stress through the course. The differences uncovered between qualitative and quantitative courses will be helpful in creating more optimal evaluation mechanisms for these two types of courses. When the stress from the grading components is reduced, students may be better able to make academic choices of courses and majors, that are more conducive to achieving the broader graduate learning outcomes of the University.

Keywords:

Undergraduate, business school, course design, academic stress, educational psychology.