Are power engineering students really using their formative assessments to achieve academic success? A case study

Abstract

Industrial Projects IV is a compulsory capstone module for students enrolled for the Baccalaureus Technologiae (BTech) in Electrical Engineering (Power) in South Africa. Power engineering students need to submit six different assignments during the course of a year, where three of these assignments are formative in nature. Students have the opportunity to improve on their work with each subsequent assignment, with the sixth assignment being summative in nature. However, are power engineering students really applying the academic feedback given on their formative assessments to improve on their future submissions? The purpose of this paper is to highlight that only a small percentage of students in a capstone module are really applying academic feedback provided to them, while the majority of students seem to be fluctuating in its use, with some initially disregarding it and then finally heeding it again. This inconsistency is highlighted by contrasting student results for four different submissions, determining which students increased or decreased their grades from one submission to the next. Results indicate that those students who improved their grades on 66% of their submissions (being two out of three successive submissions) had a 97% chance of achieving academic success, while 76% of them finished within the top 25 students in the course. A key recommendation of this research is to share its findings with future power engineering students, thereby creating an awareness of the importance of engaging more with the academic feedback given on formative assessments.