It is widely acknowledged in research that common criteria and aligned standards do not result in consistent assessment of such a complex performance as the final undergraduate thesis. Assessment is determined by examiners' understanding of rubrics and their views on thesis quality. There is still a gap in the research literature about how…

With a sample of 4,646 undergraduate students from four universities in China, this study examined the psychometric qualities of a newly-adapted measurement, namely, the Online Motivation and Engagement Scale for university and college students, and investigated the characteristics of and differences in Chinese students' motivation and engagement…

Rubrics have been suggested as a means to foster students' evaluative judgement, the capacity to appraise their own work and that of others; however, empirical evidence of rubrics' effectiveness is still emerging. This paper contributes findings from a randomised controlled experiment on the effect of rubrics on evaluative judgement. Participants…

Over the last 20 years there has been significant growth in the volume of higher education pedagogical research across disciplines and national contexts, but inherent tensions in defining quality remain. In this paper we present a framework to support understanding of what constitutes internationally excellent research, drawing on a range of…

The closed-door PhD and doctoral viva voce--the approach adopted in the United Kingdom--is esteemed by some as being a valuable academic tradition. However, an increasing body of literature and research has raised concerns about the quality, transparency, reliability and validity of this viva format. This systematic literature review aims to…

Juries are a high-stake practice in higher education to assess complex competencies. However common, research remains behind in detailing the psychometric qualities of juries, especially when using rubrics or rating scales as an assessment tool. In this study, I analyze a case of a jury assessment (N = 191) of product development where both…

This study examines the utility of a new method of analysing and reporting qualitative student survey comments. Visualisations of the sentiment of and key themes from qualitative student survey comments were developed for 34 subjects from two undergraduate health sciences courses undergoing transformation. The course and subject visualisation…

The accuracy of peer ratings on students' performance has attracted much attention from higher education researchers. In this study, we attempted to explore the accuracy of peer ratings on the quality of spoken-language interpreting in the context of tertiary-level interpreter training. We sought to understand how different types of peer raters…

Intensive research attention has focused on developing students' evaluative judgement within the higher education curriculum, but little has addressed how it can be measured. The contextual nature of evaluative judgement makes it difficult to generate an encompassing instrument, highlighting the need for situated measurement tools. Against this…

Teamwork skills are foundational for career success and student learning in group projects. One of the major challenges of teamwork involves managing conflict among team members. In the current research, we develop a conflict management styles (CMS) psychometric inventory that assesses students' levels of the five styles of managing conflict based…

Groupwork is a crucial aspect of work contexts and a key twenty first century skill. Assessment of groupwork provides a persistent challenge for educators in university contexts with students reporting experiences of unfairness from their peers during groupwork. This study developed a novel Peer Assessment Fairness Instrument to explore factors…

This paper reports two consecutive studies investigating Chinese students' course experiences of online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. With a sample of 2,894 undergraduate students from 12 universities, Study one adapted the Course Experience Questionnaire in the context of online teaching and learning, and provided some evidence…