NEW METHODOLOGIES TO IMPROVE QUALITY AND TRANSPARENCY IN SKILLS ASSESSMENT

The introduction of student continuous assessment has led to many difficulties for teachers with a wide range of activities as well as a battery of grade that contribute to the final result becoming very difficult to manage. In fact, it involves the dedication of a high number of hours per each subject by both teachers and students, which may adversely affect the quality and effectiveness of teaching.

Therefore, the use of appropriate tools to facilitate this work is needed in order to produce an efficient teaching process. Management of student exercises sent through the Virtual Campus platform, on-line testing and the use of spreadsheets, all accompanied with complete transparency in the evaluation are some examples of our new methodology.

In order to improve the quality and transparency of continuous assessment it is essential for students receive clear information of the grades achieved in all activities which contribute to the evaluation. Therefore, the teacher must establish a procedure concerning the revision of the different evaluation activities. In this way students always receive feedback about their results allowing them to take appropriate steps in successive reassessment tests.

The teaching experience presented in this paper focuses on the methodologies developed for student competence assessment in different subjects during the 2010/2011 academic year. This work is included in the project entitled ‘Methodologies and Tools for improving the efficiency, transparency and quality of the continuous assessment in the European Higher Education Area” directed by Dr. Sanjiv Prashar and which forms part of the sixth edition of the Innovation in Education Program of the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos.