Three-step approach for developing integrated work- ready assessment tools to foster student’s learning and satisfaction

The purpose of this paper is to present the relevance of the three-step approach undertaken by a marketing academic working in the University of New England Business School to foster distance student’s learning, satisfaction and overall study experience. This work is a reflection of the author’s teaching practice whereby a multitude of innovative teaching resources, relevant assignments and effective feedback system were integrated to develop work-ready assessment tools that are required for today’s graduates to be readily employable. Evidence gathered from teaching and unit evaluation data obtained from the years 2011 to 2014 indicated that this three-step approach fostered students’ independent learning by transforming them from being passive surface learners to deep and active learners. Similarly, the overall satisfaction rate of students with the units (subject) coordinated by the author, the pass rates and grade point averages as well as the number of distinctions and high distinctions secured by students enrolled in those marketing related units indicate the acquisition of authentic cognitive skills. The evidence gathered from teaching practice indicates the relevance of integrating work-ready assessment tools with worthwhile feedback and innovative teaching resources to enhance distance students’ overall study experience.


INTRODUCTION
Australian universities are the preferred destinations for many students pursuing their tertiary education dreams.For many years Australian universities have been providing enhanced higher education opportunities for diverse student cohorts consisting of domestic, international, mature and younger age students.Today, the global higher education market is rapidly changing and so is the Australian higher education market due to funding restrictions, changing domestic and international students' needs and wants, many universities offering similar offerings, and the ever-changing purchasing power parity that comes with fluctuating monetary exchange rates.Additionally, many private education providers are also rapidly entering the Australian higher education E-mail: sadapa2@une.edu.au.Tel: (02) 6773 2915.Fax: (02) 6773 3148.MB: 0421358996 Authors agree that this article remain permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License market with an attractive offering of flexible study and course delivery modes (Precision Consultancy and Commonwealth of Australia, 2007).
Within the services context, the role of tertiary education sector in revenue generation cannot be overlooked as it generates massive revenues and adds significantly to the Australian national economy.Therefore, it is imperative for the Australian higher education sector to focus on the provision of customised service offerings to its students that align with the ever changing demands of universities, industries and students (Yorke, 2006;Harvey, 2005).Given this context, there seems to be a lot of pressure on higher education institutions as the industry's demand for seeking workready graduates is steadily increasing, promoting an enterprise culture (Ballantine and McCourt, 2007).
The benefits associated with the focus on work-ready graduates are varied and manifold.Universities develop a distinct competitive and market advantage and can attract increased student numbers.Similarly, universities can use their focus on developing work-ready graduates as a base to attract scholarships and funding from industries apart from building upon collaborative projects through national and international grants.Academics can focus on developing work-ready assessment tasks in order to be able to respond effectively to the present and future needs (Alderman and Milne, 2005) of education institutions, industries and students; produce more workready graduates (Orrell, 2004); enhance community engagement through meaningful partnerships; and produce graduates with better integration capabilities with societal values (Smith, 2012).
The purpose of this study is to present the relevance of the three-step approach for developing integrated workready assessment tools to foster student learning and satisfaction with the unit offerings in the context of Business School at the Australian university.Regional universities occupy a distinct position in terms of their student cohorts and research priorities in Australia.There exists a need for the regional universities to differentiate themselves and focus on appropriate positioning strategies in order to achieve a better competitive advantage given the current situation whereby city-based universities can enroll as many students as possible.Regional universities need to focus on improvising measures to provide a quality on-campus education experience, a unique off-campus education, increased social inclusiveness, and enhancement of students' workready capabilities.Students pursuing their higher education studies within regional universities also seem to be isolated and tend to pace their study options.Universities Australia that oversee the universities teaching and learning activities and students' capabilities and needs in 2008 urged universities to address the national skills shortage and student employability through appropriate measures (Universities Australia 2008).
Therefore, this study presents the three-step approach as a reflection of good teaching practice developed and implemented by the author (a marketing academic) in delivering marketing-related units to undergraduate and postgraduate students in a regional Australian university.The initial focus was on the revitalisation of subject content within the unit offerings.Then the author focused on developing a multitude of innovative teaching resources presented to students in the form of interactive case studies, activities, power points, audio podcasts, and topic summary notes that were released to students on a weekly basis.The assessment tasks developed were divided into formative and summative assessment tasks.Formative assessment tasks were linked to the weekly teaching resources and summative assessment tasks were linked to specific industry needs.Throughout the unit offering the author, as the instructor, provided timely and useful feedback to students on both formative and summative assessment tasks.
The following section presents a brief review of existing literature and presents the conceptual framework of the present study.The next section outlines the method adopted to obtain students' data related to their overall grade point averages and satisfaction rates with subject offerings.Results and discussion are then presented and implications of the three-step approach and work-ready assessment tools are discussed.

BACKGROUND AND LITERATURE SYNTHESES
Students need to be active and independent learners as these skills developed at the university level will reap greater benefits when students enter the work environment.Biggs (1994)' classification focuses on three types of learners: surface learners with an aim to just pass the units; achievement-oriented learners who aim to get good grades; and deep learners who enjoy learning apart from securing higher grades.In order to be active and independent learners, students need to change their overall thinking about the units, unit coordinators, and the content included within these units.This overall change in students' thinking will actually allow them to think beyond the surface learning process.
In terms of managing the students' cohorts, Business Schools operating within the Australian context have unique student cohorts with varied needs and study demands.The student cohorts enrolled in the units coordinated by me varied greatly in terms of variables such as age (18 to 60 years), gender (male and female), type of employment (full time to part time to casual) and ethnicity (domestic to international).The size of the units also varied from being 'small units' consisting of 15 to 30 students to 'large units' consisting of over 60 students.Similarly, it is noticed that the students' perceptions of 'what they wanted from enrolling in marketing units?' and 'where they want to be after completing their studies?' exhibited greater variability.
These perceptions largely determined students' interaction with the unit coordinator, their overall engagement with the unit content, their performance, and their level of engagement on Moodle discussion boards.Similarly, the career aspirations of domestic, international, undergraduate and postgraduate students exhibited greater differences.Based on the students' interactions on Moodle, it was evident that a majority preferred to be surface learners and seemed to be highly passive in terms of their interaction with the unit content, the unit coordinator and their peers.Despite all of the aforesaid variability, the ultimate aim of all the students is to enter the work environment as soon as possible by gaining work-ready skills.To complement students' aspirations, work experience components were successfully integrated into the teaching curriculum through workready assessment tools.
A three-step approach (Figure 1) in covering important components such as resources, assessments and feedback that reflect the development of work-ready assessment tools was adopted.The first step focused on providing a range of resources by way of writing/rewriting/ updating teaching material, including appropriate readings, relevant case studies, unit related content in Power point slides, audio summaries, video links and other relevant activities.All of these resources are released on a weekly basis to fit the students' learning pace.In the second step, the focus was on developing assignments in the form of 'Marketing Plans' and 'Strategic Marketing Plans' whereby students need to use their critical thinking skills and draw logical conclusions.This was further supplemented with 'assignment tips' that provided an overview of the entire assessment task.In the third step the focus was to provide a worthwhile feedback system to students in order to develop their core competencies and ongoing development (Table 1).
Implementation of this three-step approach that feeds back directly to the development of integrated work-ready assessment tools benefited students to a greater extent and is evident in terms of their enhanced independent learning abilities and their transformation from surface to achievement-oriented, deep and active learners.The success of this approach is further evidenced through the grades secured by students in respective units and the consistency of overall student satisfaction ratings across various Marketing units.Smith (2012) outlined six domains of work-integrated learning curriculum that cover structural and conceptual measures such as authenticity, alignment of teaching and learning related activities with learning objectives, alignment of assessment tasks with learning objectives, integrated learning support, academic contact and achieving successful outcomes through preparation process.Integration of work-ready assessment tools needs to provide students a meaningful engagement with a real work environment (Herrington and Herrington, 2006).Realistic problems need to motivate students and encourage active participation (Keogh et al., 2007).Biggs ' (1996) framework suggests that to constructively align learning objectives with assessment tasks in order to foster students' learning and teaching activities.The connection of theoretical frameworks with practice-

Students' Independent Learning
Transformation from passive surface learners to active achievementoriented and deep learners Work-ready Integrated Work-Ready Assessment Tools Step 1: Teaching Resources (Wide range) Step 2: Assignments (Plans & Tips) Step 3: Timely Feedback oriented approaches triggers intellectual stimulation towards learning by way of fostering state-of-the-art disciplinary knowledge, thus allowing learners to transfer university learning to the workplace (Dymock & Gerber 2002).Academic engagement and contact is important in fostering integrated learning support to students by way of providing feedback with feed forward elements and support throughout the experience (Keogh et al., 2007).
The management of effective pedagogical requirements helps students achieve successful learning outcomes and prepares them for ever changing industry requirements (Smith, 2012).

METHOD
The author focused on obtaining existing student data as a measure to understand students' learning and satisfaction.Data were extracted from the unit and teaching evaluations obtained from students for each unit offering.Extant literature indicates that positive student experience is highly correlated to academic performance and overall grade point averages.Students' academic performance is related to their attention to detail with various assessment components set out for the units available in a specific course (for example Bachelors in Business) into which the student is enrolled.and 3 as a key measure to understand the impact created by the three step approach developed and implemented by author on students' academic performance and their overall satisfaction with unit offerings.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Enhancements to student learning are evident through the educational opportunities provided to off-campus students through Moodle discussion boards, to ensure that students who are not on campus have the same level of support as those who attend lectures and tutorials.Biggs and Tang (2007) highlight the importance of the communication of clear objectives and expectations for active learning.The weekly release of a range of learning resources for distance students in the form of power point slides, audio podcasts, activities in the form of exercises for students, topic summaries, case studies, and video links on the Moodle Learning Management System attracted students to focus on independent learning.Topic related content was repeated in various formats and integrated with relevant examples that were much appreciated by students.The scaffolding of the academic literacy related aspects of these units by introducing a combination of learning resources was deemed to be very useful.The development of well-informed assessment tasks enhances learning processes and develops goal setting and critical reflection (Ganda et al., 2014).
The incorporation of integrated assessment strategies in various Marketing units attracted active engagement in Moodle discussion boards and other related forums, selfmonitoring and critical reflection on learning process, interactive response to the feedback, enhanced peer participation and development of the essential skill sets and core competencies required for real world practice, as well as continuous improvement and life-long learning.
The assessment tools and revised learning resources provided for this unit encouraged students to think beyond it, the discipline and the university context to expand their knowledge and skills in order to meet real world work situations.The development of work-ready assessment tools as assessment tasks for Marketing units with a focus on the clear articulation of goals stimulated students' interest in the subject.The focus upon incorporating assessment tasks that support student learning in and beyond the University context through the acquisition and development of necessary skills and competencies enables students to be workready, yet also delivers higher levels of student learning, engagement and satisfaction.-------------------- --------------------- Assignments were developed by taking into consideration the knowledge levels of the students at that stage of the unit with all of the necessary support and resources provided as well as what is actually expected from them when they join the workforce.These assignments were made interesting by allowing students to develop marketing plans that aligned with the unit material with greater emphasis on application-based learning.Assignment tips were provided in advance that helped students to enhance their problem-solving and critical thinking abilities.Assignment tips focused on a range of information detailing how the assignment question needed to be carefully interpreted and responses logically argued.Additionally, these tips highlighted the structural and general components of assignments.
Feedback is an important component for both academics and students as it provides diagnostic evidence of teaching quality and is usually communicated in a way that is informative and improves students' work.Essential elements of an effective feedback system for academics include the identification of learning gaps, encouraging student involvement and focus upon on students' overall learning progression.In identifying the learning gap, the difference between what students already know and they need to know by enrolling into a specific course or taking up specific units needs be clearly identified by academics.Embedding adequate instructional support allows students to progress in their learning and engage in cognitive learning activities.Appropriate feedback given by academics will inform the next step in the critical learning process and is directed at identified learning deficiencies.Care needs to be taken to build the cognitive skills of students by breaking down the larger learning goals into smaller components and continuously monitoring the entire learning process (Hattie and Timperley, 2007).A worthwhile feedback system also will enable students to acquire and develop core competencies (Hattie and Timperley, 2007).
Acquisition of key competencies encourages students to focus on independent learning in dynamic complex business environments.For example, the provision of prompt feedback to students on their assessment submissions and responding to their enquiries in a professional manner will generate interest among students and encourage deeper learning.Provision of regular formative learning support to students in various Marketing units with relevant feedback fostered their ongoing development.Similarly, provision of constructive, respectful criticism (often by highlighting areas for further development) stimulated students' engagement with the unit, peers and the unit coordinator.
It is important for students to utilise disciplinary knowledge in the workplace through integrated learning.Therefore, it is very important for academics to embed the concept of integrated learning in curriculum activities and assessments.It also is important for academics to focus on enhancing the cognitive authenticity of students evident through their transformation from surface passive learners to deep active learners through personally meaningful and relevant learning settings (Herrington and Herrington, 2006;Smith, 2012).The structural dimensions associated with the unit are important in fostering students' independent learning.These structural dimensions relate to the organisation and structuring of various learning tasks and the presentation of materials and information in a clear, concise and accessible manner (Richardson, 2005).The process dimensions relate to the instructor's interpersonal skills and ability to engage and encourage students to contribute to learning tasks and think independently (Goldstein and Benassi, 2006).Students' evaluations clearly reflect the focus of the instructor in integrating structural and process dimensions to foster independent learning and critical thinking (Luke and Hogarth, 2011).Similarly, open-ended comments obtained from students clearly indicate the balance brought by the instructor by bringing together the needs and expectations of the various student cohorts.
Formative assessment is a process of continuously assessing students while instruction is underway through the provision of effective feedback (Popham, 2008).This assessment technique enables instructors to understand what students actually know; to identify knowledge gaps; and to plan future instruction in order to improve the quality of the learning process.Formative assessment also includes ongoing activities and processes that are linked to current teaching and learning activities (Perie et al., 2007).This type of assessment helps instructors diagnose students' progress throughout the unit.Three broad strategies associated with formative assessment include 'on-the-fly' alteration whereby instructors' change the course in order to address any misconceptions before proceeding with the usual instructional sequence; planned-for interaction whereby the instructor decides to draw out students' thinking during the course of instruction; and curriculum embedding whereby the instructor integrates various tools and activities in the curriculum to gather feedback from students at key points in the learning process (Heritage, 2007).The exemplary student outcomes in terms of grade point averages, low attrition rates, grading distributions and the high standard of reported satisfaction for various marketing related units are further evidence of prompt and timely feedback, the positive influence that has been generated, and the result of formative learning support.
The overall unit evaluation scores over the past four years in five Marketing units are presented in Table 1.An increase in students' cognitive skills is evident through the rise in the number of 'distinctions' and 'high distinctions' secured by students and the increase in the pass rate and overall grade point averages over the years presented in Tables 2 and 3.
These scores show a steady improvement in overall students' satisfaction with units over the time that the author has been involved.The author taught a postgraduate unit in 2010 and another postgraduate unit in 2011 for postgraduate distance students and secured teaching evaluations of over 4.5 out of 5.0 (which place the units in the top 10% of the offerings made at the university).The author also taught the undergraduate services marketing unit in 2012, 2013 and in 2014 and undergraduate strategic marketing unit in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 to undergraduate distance students and secured teaching evaluations of over 4.5 out of 5.0 on all measures of providing best teaching resources, timely and constructive feedback and overall student satisfaction.
Table 2 presents information regarding the number of students enrolled within each unit offering and the change in the students' learning patterns.Due to the teaching interventions embraced by the author within these unit offerings, the number of students securing distinctions and high distinctions has increased substantially and it has been further reflected in the author receiving commendation awards from the university across all of these unit offerings.
Table 3 presents information related to the students' pass rates and grade point averages that have increased over time and which truly reflect the learning outcomes achieved by students from these unit offerings.The implementation of the three-step approach changed the focus of learning for students as they valued the real-life authentic assessment tasks that meet the needs of the industry.Students' academic results shifted from pass to distinction and high distinction assessments.

Conclusion
It is evident that the three-step approach taken by the author integrates the elements of innovative teaching resources, assessment tools and feedback systems to foster students' learning and overall satisfaction.A marked shift is evident through the increased engagement of students on the learning management system and the quality of answers provided in discussion forums.The grade point averages, distinction and high distinction scores secured by students within the unit offerings taught by the author showed a further transformation of students from passive surface learning to deep achievement-oriented learning.A focus on enhancing the work-ready skills of students was greatly appreciated by students and reflected in their teaching and unit evaluations through objective measurement.Similarly, the data support the conclusion that students developed their meta-cognitive skills (evident in the increase in the number of distinctions and high distinctions secured).The overall pass rate and the grade point averages also exhibited an increasing trend.Integration of innovative teaching resources with authentic assessment tasks directed towards meeting the ever-changing challenges of the industry coupled with continuous feedback motivated students to focus on integrating theory with practice, deeper learning and satisfaction with the study content.Higher education institutions need to focus on embracing work-ready assessment tools in their teaching and learning activities in order to better prepare students for the real world industry experiences.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Three-step approach fostering students' learning and satisfaction.Source: Developed for this paper.
Two postgraduate and two undergraduate unit offerings were evaluated.The postgraduate units were GSB736 International Marketing and GSB737 Services Marketing in 2009, 2010 and 2011.The data related to the postgraduate unit offerings in 2012, 2013 and 2014 were not included as one unit offering has been removed and a different academic taught the other unit.The two undergraduate unit offerings included MM314 Services Marketing and MM316 Strategic Marketing offered in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014.The grade point averages, pass rates, distinctions and high distinctions secured by the students are presented in Tables1, 2
------Evaluations not available as less than 5 students attempted to perform unit/teaching evaluations.++++ Unit no longer offered.*Coordinated by the author.2009, 2010 and 2011 -MM314 offered as a double-badged unit MM214/MM314 Numbers in parentheses -students enrolled in that particular unit.