‘It’s overwhelming, looking at a brief…’: Exploring non-traditional first year students’ experience of engaging with assignment briefs as part of summative assessment practices
Knight, John (2024) ‘It’s overwhelming, looking at a brief…’: Exploring non-traditional first year students’ experience of engaging with assignment briefs as part of summative assessment practices. Doctoral thesis, Buckinghamshire New University (Awarded by Coventry University).
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Abstract
This thesis aims to explore the experiences of non-traditional first year students in their engagement with assignment briefs as part of summative assessment practices. It aims to situate their experiences in the context of a range of literature, including studies related directly to assignment brief design, but also the wider practices of higher education assessment, cognitive accounts for the learning process and challenges faced by non-traditional students in their transition to higher education, viewed through the lens of a theoretical framework based on the academic literacies framework (Lea and Street, 1998, 2006) and drawing on Gee’ (2011) concept of Discourse and Bakhtinian (1981) notions of dialogism. The study uses an interpretative phenomenological analysis approach (Smith, Flowers and Larkin, 2009; Smith and Nizza, 2022) to explore the lived experience of four first-year Social Work students and one Business student from diverse backgrounds in their engagement with assignment briefs as part of their initial experiences of assessment in higher education. A round of semi-structured interviews was conducted with all participants in their first year of study. A subsequent interview with one of the participants in their third year provides a useful further perspective. Analysis of a selection of some of the assignment briefs with which the students engage provides an additional context for the analysis of their experiences. Findings point to high levels of student anxiety about assessment processes and the usefulness of clear, consistent and concise but comprehensive assignment briefs which include well-pitched and progressive scaffolding as a basis for confident engagement with assessed work and feelings of confidence in relation to future work. Of particular relevance is the importance of the role of the assignment brief in providing a basis for students’ developing understanding of academic and disciplinary norms. It is suggested that poorly communicated information and misaligned assessed tasks not only impede students’ engagement with assessment, but also impact negatively on the development of key academic and disciplinary literacies and may also result in the internalisation of negative feelings about their preparedness and suitability for higher study.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Keywords: | Assignment briefs, Assessment, Academic literacies, Non-traditional students 5. First year |
| Depositing User: | RED Unit Admin |
| Date Deposited: | 11 Sep 2024 10:19 |
| Last Modified: | 11 Sep 2024 10:19 |
| URI: | https://bnu.repository.guildhe.ac.uk/id/eprint/19224 |
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