In spite of its crucial role, the topic of assessment remains a source of contention within the education community. Differing assessment practices by different practitioners makes assessments unreliable. Assessment inconsistencies also exist in higher education where academics and industry professionals are responsible for assessing research dissertations. The main objectives of the current reflective study are to improve my assessment practices by critiquing a dissertation examination tool and making recommendations based on my personal experience. In trying to investigate dissertation examination practices, only limited recorded information was found on this topic. Therefore, since the assessment tool provided did not detail all assessment criteria for the dissertations, knowledge had to be drawn from personal past experience as a research student. This enabled the identification of key features for a good dissertation and to guide how dissertations should be examined. Not being an expert in all the dissertation topics caused much fear and doubt when examining them. Based on this, expert advice and guidance from colleagues was sought out. Considering all of this evidence, it has become clear that training of novice examiners is essential. An assessment rubric with an unambiguous detailed guiding criteria should be developed and standardized for assessment practices to be standardized across the department.

Authors:
Ziningi Jaya, Mangosuthu University of Technology, South Africa

About the Presenter(s)
Ms Ziningi Jaya is a University Assistant Professor/Lecturer at Mangosuthu University of Technology in South Africa

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