Background
- Focus groups were held with students from Oxford Brookes University, Southampton Solent University and Bournemouth University.
- At each university; one group contained students who had declared they had dyslexia and one group had not declared they had dyslexia.
- The aim was to evaluate the students' experience of assessment and to consider how these experiences might be enhanced.
- As part of the research method the TLC project team were interested in incorporating a new visual element into the focus groups. This involved students creating posters, which embodied their personal positive and negative experiences of assessment. Students selected images that best described their emotions surrounding assessment and placed these under a happy or unhappy face.
Methodology
A qualitative approach was adopted and focus groups were chosen as an appropriate research method. This enabled the TLC team to:
- actively expose new information
- explore the students' personal views/thoughts on assessment
- look for surprising/new information
- find out about students' motivation to learn
- tap into emotional and spotaneous responses through visual media
Focus Group Questions:
- What types of assessments had they have encountered to date within Higher Education?
- What assessments did they perceive as being creative?
- How had assessment influenced their learning behaviour?
- What difference did having dyslexia make?
- What did they like/dislike about assessment methods?
- How could lecturers assess learning better ?
References
Channell & Associates. (2002). Running a Focus Group.
McCafferty et al, (2005). Focus Group Research for TLC project.
Morgan, D L. (1998). Focus Group Kits. Sage Publications Inc.
Robson, C (1993). Real World Research. Blackwell.
Results of Focus Groups (with links to the posters produced)
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