Undergraduate Student Performance in a Structural Analysis Course: Continuous Assessment before and after the COVID-19 Outbreak

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic situation in 2020 forced educational institutions worldwide to fully adopt online learning for both teaching and assessment. However, this change may lead to less satisfactory learning outcomes, if the online technologies used have not been adequately applied. This study compares student engagement and performance through online continuous assessment in a one-semester structural analysis course for undergraduate architecture students before and after the pandemic outbreak. Online continuous assessment assignments had already been deployed and validated in the course evaluation system before the outbreak, and they were further leveraged during the online course. These assignments consisted of three weekly Moodle questionnaires throughout each of the fifteen course weeks, which determined the continuous assessment score. More than 200 students participated in each period. The results showed that shifting to online education affected continuous assessment outcomes very little in terms of participation rates and student performance. The possible underlying causes for the slight differences found between the two academic years are also discussed. The results highlight the robustness of the continuous assessment method used and emphasize the importance of having developed and validated online learning procedures to broach learning activities if contingency situations are required.

An Empirical Analysis of the Impact of Continuous Assessment on the Final Exam Mark

“…A possible explanation for this different behavior could be that during the COVID-19 lockdown, the University of Almería fixed a mandatory 50% of CA in all the courses; the marks in the CA part are significantly higher in e-learning teaching (50.51% for e-learning against 36.5% got in in-person taught courses) lowering the motivation for exam preparation in some students as have been reported in [10,14,23]. This rise in online CA was also reported by De Santos Berbel et al [54] but the authors also found a growth in the dropout rate, which could have a negative effect on the variable Exam because the student's withdrawal is recorded in this variable with zero. Another possible explanation could be that there is more room for cheating in online CA: instructors could have made a bigger effort to avoid cheating in the online final exam by, for example, increasing the bank of questions or setting a tight completion time whereas in blended teaching the final exam is face to face.…”

H5P-Based Matching Game for Training Graphs of Internal Forces in Structural Analysis

“…This course follows a blended-learning scheme with weekly assignments, both synchronous and asynchronous [18]. The final grade in the course consists of three grades.…”

“…Asynchronous learning systems are based on communication platforms that do not require timely engagement among the individuals involved in the educational process [17]. Based on students' evaluation results, previous studies have suggested that asynchronous assignments in blended learning can help to maintain the level of learning and consolidate knowledge, even in adverse conditions and under severe constraints [18][19][20][21][22]. Learning management platforms for distance learning facilitate interactions between participants using a framework known as 'request-response'.…”

What We Know After the Pandemic. Online and Face-to-Face Testing in Comparative Perspective

“…These experiences have tremendous potential to influence students' self-confidence (Gill, 2015). Questions of how to ensure the quality of online learning and also how to provide an assessment of knowledge that truly reflects what students know have come to the forefront among practitioners (De Santos-Berbel, Hernando García, De Santos-Berbel, 2022). The reason for these questions and consequent discussions was the rapid transition from face-to-face instruction to online instruction that took place in a virtual classroom in a home environment.…”