Research project assessments and supervisor marking: maintaining academic rigour through robust reconciliation processes

• Published in: Assessment and evaluation in higher education 2020-11, Vol.45 (8), p.1181-1191
• Main Authors: McQuade, Richard, Kometa, Simon, Brown, Jeremy, Bevitt, Debra, Hall, Judith
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Academic grading; Bias; Biological Sciences; Capstone Experiences; College Science; Educational evaluation; Foreign Countries; Grading; Graduate Students; Interrater Reliability; moderation; reconciliation process; Research Projects; Research Reports; second marking; Student Research; supervisor marking; Supervisors; Undergraduate project reports; Undergraduate Students; University students
• ISSN: 0260-2938; 1469-297X
• DOI: 10.1080/02602938.2020.1726284

Research project modules are a key part of UK undergraduate and postgraduate bioscience degree programmes. Report marking invariably uses two assessors, but marking models are mixed with some institutions using two independent markers and others using the project supervisor as one of the assessors. This latter model is controversial with critics suggesting that it is vulnerable to supervisor bias whilst proponents argue that it ensures subject expertise in the assessment process. Our undergraduate bioscience programmes utilise the supervisor as one of the report assessors, whilst postgraduate programmes do not. With the aim of exploring the impacts, if any, of using the supervisor as an assessor, the grades relating to undergraduate and postgraduate reports marked and reconciled during the period 2011/12 to 2016/17 were compared. Analyses of undergraduate reports (897), showed the grades awarded by the supervisor were on average 2.3% higher (p