WHAT MAKES A GOOD MARKETING STUDENT? THE ROLE OF 'AUTHENTIC' ASSESSMENT PRACTICE IN A MARKETING CLASSROOM

Aim/research question:This research paper aims to explore the roleauthentic assignments can play in the skill development of students who wish topursue a marketing career. This research questions the role of formativeauthentic... [ view full abstract ]

Aim/research question:

This research paper aims to explore the roleauthentic assignments can play in the skill development of students who wish topursue a marketing career. This research questions the role of formativeauthentic coursework assessments in generating and nurturing positive teamdynamics, developing cross-cultural communication skills, and creatingsolutions for organizations in response to specific marketing problems allunder significant time pressure, all situations that mimic the real worldprojects.

Design/methodology/approach:

Authentic assessment refers to ‘a whole way ofthinking about the assessment of students who are working within anintegrated/contextual environment where they are developing generic life-longlearning and real-world problem skills’ (Wellington et al. 2002). Thisproject places the student in three authentic, real world situations thatbusiness school graduates could expect to face early in their marketingcareers. This research is carried out in a second year Marketing module at a thirdlevel institution with 116 students attending the module. The module isweighted 40% coursework with 60% examination. The coursework mark has beendivided intentionally into three parts:

Coursework A worth 10% is a virtual link up projectwith an American University where one US student is paired with a group of 4 /5Irish students. The students are assigned a four week task which is based onthe marketing of a service in the grocery retail sector which is compared andcontrasted in both countries. This project requires students to work bothvirtually and on-site, with meetings scheduled with consideration of timezones, as well as deadlines imposed to ensure delivery within the 4-week periodof a maximum of 10 PowerPoint slides. This requires students to meet,coordinate, work and trust people they do not know, both in Ireland and the US,as the groups have been pre-selected in advance by the Lecturer.

Coursework B worth 5% is an individual classproject that is completed within a lecture slot. This coursework piece bringsin a PR practitioner who discusses the role of public relations and guides thestudents on the “do’s and don’ts” of PR, as well as the secrets to writing agood press release. In between the first and second lectures, students will usetheir own time to research ‘Health and Well-being’ as well as the Guest Speakerin the second lecture as notes to build their press release. In the second partof this class, the students listen to a Sports Star guest speaker promoting the‘secrets of well-being’ as a part of the country’s Health and Well Being drive.In this class, the students write a press release based on the informationprovided by the practitioner and the guest speaker. This is a time pressurepiece of work requiring completion of press release within the one-hour lectureslot. The incentive is the 5% coursework value as well as the opportunity forone student to have their press release selected for publication in theorganisation’s webpage and newsletter.

Coursework C worth 25% runs for five weeks, withstudents allowed to self- select teams based on their knowledge of classmatesduring the first part of the 12-week module. The client is one or more of theUniversity’s Clubs and Societies, with each team selecting a club or society thatthey attend or desire to attend, and reviewing the integrated marketingcommunications of this club or society. This coursework requires students tocreate a new IMC plan for the club and to develop a video based on that plan tobe submitted for assessment.

All team assignments have a peer assignment processinvolved, with no marks allocated without peer review submitted. Thesignificance of the peer assessment is to ensure that all team members areassessed fairly by their colleagues in recognition of their contribution to theassignment. Students were informed at the beginning of the assignment thatstudents who failed to contribute to the assignment would receive no marks inrecognition of their non-contribution.

The data to be collected between February 2018 toMay 2018 framework will focus on the role of assessments, the actualassessments completed, the level of their perceived learning, the teams’dynamics, team vs individual assignments and their overall perceivedapplication to their marketing career (See findings for more detail). This datacollection will take the form of one large-scale survey at the send of thesemester to all 116 students within this module. This will also lead the wayfor two focus groups after the insight received from the surveys.

Findings and discussion points:

The findings will consist of the following topicsof discussion.

·        -Team dynamics (impact of allIrish vs Irish/US team composition, communication issues or time issues withinternational students, did meeting students or knowing Irish students wouldmeet US students have an impact on project quality? Did Irish students take theinitiative to get to know the US students outside of the project using sometype of social media?)

·        -Time pressure (impact of sameday delivery, impact of individual vs team for coordination and getting projectcompleted)

·        -Virtual v in class (coordinationaspect with scheduling Skype meetings, any issues with time zone differences)

·        -Time v % worth (wasdifference in time required to complete and difficulty of project consistentwith point value of the assignment)

·        -Preselected vs self-selectedgroups (were self-selected groups preferable to lecturer selectedgroups?  Why?)

·        -External versus internal clients (didworking for an external client cause more anxiety or encourage students to workharder? Did the external project seem more realistic?  Was it moredifficult or less difficult? Was the “theoretical” grocery client or internalclient less real?  Did that impact student level of intensity in work ineither project?)

·        -Individual vs team assignment (Wasthe individual assignment preferable to the team assignments? What were themain advantages and challenges for each of the projects?)

·        -Marketing skills (Didstudents feel they had adequate skills to undertake each of the projects?Written and Oral presentation)

·        Application tofuture career (Did time pressure to complete pressrelease seem unrealistic? Were cross-cultural communication issues a problemwith US students?  Were cultures too similar to cause major or minorissues? Was the content required for each of the projects applicable to whatstudents think they might do in the future?)

Research limitations/implications:

This project runs in this module only, and withonly 40% of the module marks allocated to coursework. The weight of thecoursework pieces may impact on the student’s perceived value of the overallcoursework process and/ or each individual piece. However, there is a largeclass size of 116 students and it anticipated that there should be a good rangeof views provided. The large class size however does present challengesparticularly when working with the US students on the virtual project incoursework 1. There are only 12 US students to 116 Irish students, and as aresult the Lecturers in question had to be fair but creative as to how todivide groups. The dynamics of this team set up may be challenging, with 1 USstudent to 4/5 Irish students. This may be a more complex and overwhelmingexperience for the US student dealing with a larger number of Irish teammates.It will be interesting to observe whether the 1 US student naturally adopts theleadership role or whether they are outnumbered by their teammates in Ireland.The final limitation was linked to timing. This is a relatively short 12 weekmodule, with coursework ranging in timeframe from one individual lecture, fourweeks and five weeks at a time. Turnaround on time is tight and may limit thedevelopment of student’s skillsets as a result.

Practical / Social implications: 

There is an overriding pressure on the lecturer todeliver authentic coursework whilst also addressing the theory for exampurposes. As the exam is worth 60% of the overall module mark, the lecturermust ensure extant content is given focus. As a result, two out of the threecoursework pieces are completed outside of the classroom in the student’s owntime. However, students will receive support, and advised regularly by theLecturer in the lecture slots if queries or problems should arise. The studentsshould experience a realistic preview of some of the skills they may require inthe first few years of their career.  These may not be high levelstrategic decision making skills, but these are skills like writing a pressrelease, working in cross cultural teams and presenting that they will needvery soon. In addition, the main social implication of this project is gettingto students to look outside of the classroom!

Originality/value:

This research attempts to create a more dynamicstudent ready to enter the very challenging marketing workplace.

Reference:

Wellington, P., Thomas, I., Powell, I. and Clarke, B. (2002) Authentic
Assessment Applied to Engineering and Business Undergraduate Consulting Teams, International
Journal Engineering Education, Vol.18, No.2, pp.168-179