Enhancing learning through assessment in distance education for international health students

Mohammed Ali
Curtin University of Technology

Keywords: distance education; assessment; learning

Effective learning and assessment can be challenging in the context of the isolation faced by students in distance education. The Centre for International Health's award-winning work in this regard can be instructive. It delivers 20 postgraduate units via distance education to 225 students spread across 25 countries around the world.

The Centre uses its assessment procedures to simultaneously create learning opportunities for the student. Students are assessed through learning activities, the application of learning activities to international health country case studies, learning contracts, protocol development, and take-home review papers. Assignment formats allow students to tailor the topic to their workplace context or personal interest but demand, at the same time, extensive literature searches and reviews. Student feedback has indicated that analysing the issues in their assignments made a difference in the way they approached international health issues, for example in the way they developed projects or negotiated policy changes.

To help with assignment preparation, students receive illustrative assignments from high performing past students, as well as guidelines on academic writing. Such modelling practices have encouraged excellence, as seen by the number of student assignments and written work that have gone on to publication in peer-reviewed journals or as working papers and monographs.

Engagement with students is crucial to overcoming the isolation of distance education. On average during a coursework unit, the tutor communicates with a student 12 to 18 times, in response to questions about course content or assignment development. Tutors typically email their feedback on assignments within a week or less, thus enabling students to incorporate suggestions for improvement in time for their next assignment.

The effectiveness of the Centre's approach is validated by survey results indicating one of the best results within the university for student satisfaction with the quality of the course undertaken.