Process-Based Assessment for Professional Learning in Higher Education: Perspectives on the Student-Teacher Relationship

This article reports on a study that was carried out in autumn 2007 with students in a professional nurse education distance course at a Swedish university. The study aimed to develop a greater understanding of the student-teacher relationship based on research questions addressing the teachers’ rol...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Peter Bergström
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Athabasca University Press 2010-05-01
Series:International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/816/1544
Description
Summary:This article reports on a study that was carried out in autumn 2007 with students in a professional nurse education distance course at a Swedish university. The study aimed to develop a greater understanding of the student-teacher relationship based on research questions addressing the teachers’ role, the learning process, and the assessment process in traditional approaches to teaching and learning. A didactical design was adopted, focusing on three learning outcomes in three phases. In each of the three phases, these learning outcomes were assessed by each student documenting his/her knowledge at the beginning, middle, and end of the course. Data was collected via in-depth interviews with students (n = 14) and through a questionnaire (n = 40) and was analysed using an inductive thematic analysis of the material. The results indicate a student-teacher relationship involving ambiguity and complexity in relation to the degree of teacher direction as being teacher-centred or learner-centred and also in relation to the learning process as being reproductive or productive. The interpretation of the results shows diverse aspects of the student-teacher relationship arising from students’ beliefs about teaching, learning, and assessment and, in particular, process-based assessment. The locus of control involves the teachers’ role, the learning process, and the assessment process, which illuminates different perspectives of power relations in the student-teacher relationship.
ISSN:1492-3831