Apr
Help Me With My Assignment on Grading a Psychology Paper
Morning! I have an assignment due this week and it would be really appreciated if others collaborated to help me develop the best grading (rubric) that I could.
You do not need to be a student of psychology to help~ just a person with an opinion ~:-)
In fact, having students contribute to the creation of a marking schedule is considered a must by many educators researching the topic.
As I am not working within a university at the moment, my collaborators will be the online communities and networks I have~ that is You!!!
Thank you in advance for taking the time to read through the marking schedule (rubric) and to give your opinion on it. You can comment below, email (admin@psitutor.org) or click right on the Fanpage and comment there~
I am critiquing the rubric (marking schedule) to develop a better one (Halonen et al., 2003):
Purpose of Assignment
To collaborate with others in the production of a newspaper that summarizes the important events in psychology along with other “current” events for a selected year. Students sometimes struggle with understanding the significance of historical events in psychology. This activity helps them place the critical events of psychology in a broader cultural and historical context as they refine their collaboration skills.
Directions
Join with a group of 4 or 5 students. Display final products during a specified class period. Be prepared to discuss the role of culture and history in speculating why the psychology events occurred during your assigned year. Complete a self-assessment on the quality of your work and give feedback to other students.
Rubric for Newspaper Quality and Presentation:
Assessment of Product Description skills: Observation.
___ Summarizes key ideas accurately
Conceptualization skills: Concept application.
___ Accurately identifies psychological events with assigned year
Communication skills: Resource-gathering skills, conventional expression.
___ Uses resources selectively and appropriately
___ Balances psychology events with other newsworthy events
___ Expresses events in language appropriate for newspaper audience
___ Produces aesthetically pleasing newspaper
Problem-solving skills: Bias detection and management.
___ Speculates about how cultural and historical influences may have influenced psychology’s developments
Rubric for Collaboration: Assessment of Individual
Contribution to Group Process
Collaboration: Project completion skills, process management, leadership, consensus-building skills.
___Completes complex project with others with minimal direction
___ Contributes equitably to effectiveness of the group through leadership, cooperation, and follow-through on commitments
___ Evaluates quality of group process to improve work
___ Offers developmental feedback to group members on quality of performance
Rubric for Self-Assessment
Self-assessment: Self-regulation, self-reflection.
___ Accurately characterizes own contributions to group process
___ Evaluates effectiveness of group plan in achieving desired outcome
___ Describes lessons learned about working with groups over time that may influence future collaboration
Things To Think About
The clarity of the criteria: Is the marking schedule clear and appropriate?
Is there clear distinction between levels of acceptability or unacceptability?
Is there reliability of scoring? (would different markers be likely to come up with different results)
Clarity of expectations: Has the rubric been shared with learners in a way to guide learning?
Engagement of learners in rubric development: Have the students been involved in the creation of the marking schedule?
(Newcastle University, 2006)
References
Halonen et al. (2003). A rubric for learning, teaching, and assessing scientific inquiry in Psychology. Teaching of Psychology, 30(3 ), 196 – 208.
Newcastle University (2006). A rubric to grade rubrics. Retrieved April 4, 2010, from http://info.newcastle.edu.au/service/teaching-learning/projects/rubrictemplates/context.html
I believe the criteria is clear, however the clarity between distinctions for acceptable/unacceptable are open to the perspective of the evaluator. I also believe group work is a nightmare as in my experience there has alwyas been those who do not contibute equitably. I also believe due to the nature of ego that to be accurate in a reflective manner as to one’s contributions is also problematic. There is a tendency to overscore your ability.
April 19th, 2010 at 6:46 pmI also believe evaluation like this is open to interpretation of “energetic input”.
It takes a lot of skill and mindfulness to offer “developmental feedback” and even more courage to accept the willingness to change if the feedback is less than glowing.
Also some students are only interested in passing where other want the HD’s, in my experience I have always been one of those students that has had to “carry” others.
Hey Velvet~ Thank you so much for your feedback and insights. What you say about reflective practices is very true and form my experience in group work there tends to be a social loafer. The developmental feedback had a couple of us stumped~ how do you do such a thing, and what if the feedback is not “glowing”. I will be working this, along with other comments, into my assignment.
April 19th, 2010 at 6:53 pmhi,
April 20th, 2010 at 12:04 pmi too have found my one experience of group work a nightmare; my sister had just run over another one, after the diagnosis of cancer in our eldest sister(i’m number 11). i was being pressured to hand in my not even late assignment, with platitudes like “life goes on”..whilst another group member could not find her computer in her moving box; that was understood! i was then accused of conpiring with another group, because i answered another student’s questions! social loafing, is not the only problem. fair sharing/ apportioning of responsibility, support need considering. ifeel the schedule seems reasonably clear in theory, but in practice? also, i’m not seeing any clarity between acceptable/ not imput. also, how can “aesthetically pleasing” be quantified? that is to say, there needs to be greater stricture in evaluation, as well as transparency, across the whole psychology discipline.
Hi Lisette~ Thank you so much for sharing your story~ and such a personal one at that. It sounds as though a bit more tutor support and contact with the groups would be warranted. You make good points about sharing information and delegating responsibility and I don’t see the rubric adequately addressing these issues. And I too do not see a difference stated explicitly about waht is acceptable or unacceptable input. Quantifying aesthetically pleasing is possible methinks, at least in this case, I mean we expect a newspaper to have certain features and layout to make it easier to find information.
More transparency in psychology~ definitly ~:-) Thanks for helping us head for that goal.
April 20th, 2010 at 3:19 pmHere is feedback that was emailed to me or provided face to face:
C1 :
The first thing I noticed was that there was no weightings given for each group or individual marking criteria.
The whole newspaper Rubric is rather suspect as Psych students as well as most other students are discouraged from writing in a journalistic style. And such things as newspaper layout and style are not part of Psych studies.
The basic concept of the assignment is rather clever, I think as it puts Psychology in a context with the real world. You don’t say at what level the students are at (1st year?).
E1:
1)Theories, explain the relevant theories, implications of deterministic approach, concepts, themes, past and present research, how many references per paragraph, evidences of culture differences in perceiving different events, cause-effect relationship, clarity, relevance
I like Uses resources selectively and appropriately, Balances psychology events with other newsworthy events, Problem-solving skills: Bias detection and management.
2)Roles repartition correlates with personality traits, compensational responsibilities, time consumption, effectiveness, oratory competency, engagement, defining priorities and responsibilities, different types of leadership, categories, goals, sub-goals, clairvoyance in understanding instructions, research organization
I really like Contributes equitably to effectiveness of the group through leadership, cooperation, and follow-through on commitments
3)Methodology, how close to the goal, how applying this to the real world, honesty
P1:
Too broad~ Across all the classes for the subject what is the time deadline to complete the project.
Instead of newsworthy events, have a focus on the culture and history of psychology at the time.
What is the point of having a newspaper audience for psychology students?
How will they effectivly evaluate group collaboration input~ through discussions, criticisms during group meetings…?
T1 & I brainstorming:
Will the students be exposed to the key events for time periods in lectures?
The questions in the rubric are vague, ambiguous and too broad.
Who decides what “other newsworthy events” are? And how are they relevant to an undergrad psychology student learning about psychology?
How do the students know how to be a journalist? Will they be exposed to the language of the art in class? What criteria will they be assessed by?
How will they be assessed on layout? Will they be exposed in class? Given examples?
Are students going to be exposed in class to methods of unbiased interpretation and how not to speculate? How will the examiner know when they are doing these things? How will the students know so that they can make it a goal not to?
In an ideal world the work-life-study balance would not interference with unsupervised, meet at your own convenience, groupwork.
What does “minimal direction” mean (for collaboration). Doesn’t seek help from others? Bounce ideas off them? Doesn’t touch base with tutor? Seems an absurd requirement of groupwork.
The criteria have many loaded words, e.g., equity~ what is this supposed to mean for the students?
How is collaboration operationalised? By number of emails sent? Answered? Group attendance?
WTF is “developmental feedback”???? Who asked you your opinion of me ~:-) Who am I to tell someone else where I think they are developmentally in group collaboration? Exactly how am I supposed to let another know that they are developmentally lacking in group collaboration? What’s the criteria?
Personality differences, jealousy etc could have an entire group of peers rate me low through bias. It happens.
April 22nd, 2010 at 1:42 pmIt seems pretty comprehensive, although I couldn’t see if news-worthyness or appropiate formatting was covered.
It also said that speculation was graded – is speculation encouraged or discouraged, it wasn’t clear to me.
I also thought that the language was more complex then necessary with some of the aims being ambiguous. This would be ok for older, educated students but I feel it would be confusing and intimidating to younger students.
April 22nd, 2010 at 6:34 pmHi Sterling~ thanks for dropping by. Good point about speculation ~:-) I agree, the first years would find this confusing, especially as they are meant to be learning APA formatting and academic lingo and argument.
April 22nd, 2010 at 10:07 pm[...] Help Me With My Assignment on Grading a Psychology Paper (psipsychologytutor.org) [...]
April 25th, 2010 at 11:23 am