Evaluating the weekly-assessed tutorial sheet approach to assessment: the students' experience

Evaluations of teaching and assessment interventions often focus on pre- and postintervention changes in examination and/or coursework performance. Whilst these are important indicators in their own right, it is interesting also to review the student view of the intervention. This paper adds a further perspective to the examination performance improvements resulting from the introduction of Weekly-Assessed Tutorial Sheets (see Russell, 2005) by focusing on the voice of the student. In the case presented here, changing the assessment strategy not only improved the examination performance but also gave rise to improvements in Student Feedback Questionnaire (SFQ) returns as well as other positive observations about the experience. What is particularly interesting from the feedback is the fact that the students recognised the value of the assessment, wanted to see the approach transported to other modules and yet many were reluctant to commit to doing the work unless it counted towards their grade for the module.