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Assessing Students’ Understanding of Leadership Theory through an Online Multiple Choice Test:

Assessing Students’ Understanding of Leadership Theory through an Online Multiple Choice Test: . Lessons from a Manchester Leadership Programme Pilot. ‘It was alright, the exam, as it was.’. Leadership in Action Units: A little bit of context. Basic premise:

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Assessing Students’ Understanding of Leadership Theory through an Online Multiple Choice Test:

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  1. Assessing Students’ Understanding of Leadership Theory through an Online Multiple Choice Test: Lessons from a Manchester Leadership Programme Pilot

  2. ‘It was alright, the exam, as it was.’

  3. Leadership in Action Units: A little bit of context • Basic premise: • Units explore C21st problems and leadership required to address them • The academic units: • 10 or 20 credits, level 2(5) • Lecture-based or online • Large cohorts drawn from across all Faculties • Different disciplines; different academic literacies • Extensive use of Blackboard • Forced to innovate

  4. Rationale for Introducing MCQ • Lecture-based 10 credit unit had 2 points of assessment • Group ePoster (60%) • Online Assessed Discussions (40%) • What feedback was telling us: • Students sometimes struggled to make connections between lectures and leadership • Leadership models and theories introduced but understanding not explicitly tested • ILOs made claims we couldn’t substantiate • Group project worth > 50% of mark problematic • What we did (in conjunction with academic lead): • Increased lecture input on leadership models and theories • Developed core reading list to underpin/complement • MCQ to test reading • Final discussion question: reflect on learning about leadership • Make systematic and explicit connections between parts of unit

  5. Challenges We Anticipated • Large cohort • Semester 1 – 341 students • Semester 2 – 205 students • Interdisciplinarity • Resources • Technical issues

  6. Student Feedback • Liked having a variety of assessments • Less stressful than essays and exams • MCQ tests are easier to pass: • educated guessing is possible • confidence-boosting • average marks

  7. Challenges That Emerged • Question design • Too many resources on the reading list • Future development: • More scenario-based questions • Remove references to texts in questions • Free text responses - essay grading software?

  8. Outcomes • Knowledge retention • Incentivised to read • Application of reading / learning – ‘If you do the reading, you learn a lot’ • Unit Intended Learning Outcome: • ‘Students should be able to: • understand and critically evaluate a range of different models and theories of leadership • appreciate different styles of leadership within a cultural context’

  9. Learning Experiences ‘The information I learnt about leadership theories is memorable, and I think I will remember them – because they were different to everything else I was doing; and because of the reading we had to do.’ ‘The MCQ test reassured you that you had understood the theory.’

  10. Discussion

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