Results
work which may happen in the teaching laboratories . Some flexibility is available to students regarding when to attend the laboratories due to the demands of different projects and so this represents an estimate of contact time associated with the project and may be considered an average across multiple weeks .
Asynchronous timetabled activities included screencasts created in lieu of lectures that students were required to review prior to a synchronous session designed to expand and consolidate the concepts introduced such as in a workshop . Formally these first appeared in the timetable in 20 / 21 , where flipped classroom methodologies were widely adopted in response to Covid- 19 teaching contingency measures , however they were in use in some courses prior to that . The hours for asynchronous timetabled activities have been taken from the planned timetable when known and typically allocated 1-hour blocks of time .
Formative Assessment relates to assessments taking place at scheduled times such as interviews ( viva voce ) and class tests . Summative assessment is calculated from assessment timetables and reflects the anticipated workload for each item of coursework . Where coursework requires contact time , this is assumed to be part of the hours listed . Exams or Open Book Assessments are detailed in Table 2 but not included in the week maps unless taking place within the 12 teaching weeks .
Assessment Timetable Analysis
Assessment timetables were reviewed , and all assessment deadlines categorised as formative or summative , by assessment type , and the percentage of the module each assessment comprised . From 20 / 21 , each level 6 module operated on the principle that no more than 30 hours could be contact or asynchronous learning activities . The time available to complete assessment was calculated according to the following formula :
Time available for assessment = total time for module – compulsory learning activities
To enable comparison of different modules , this was used despite a degree of variation between the hours of compulsory learning activities . For a typical 15-credit module , this left 120 hours for assessment , effectively 8 hours of effort per 1 credit . This enabled a percentage weighting of each summative assessment item to be determined . For example , an item of coursework is worth 25 % of a 15-credit module , and so is allocated 3.75 credits , and 30 hours of effort . The calculated hours were added into the assessment week maps according to the workload assumptions .
Workload Model
Analysis of the timetables and assessment timetables for the modules outlined in Table 1 were used to create a method of evaluating student workload per week in terms of credits gained through assessment . A series of assumptions about modules assessment were made :
1 . Based on typical coverage of key content , and availability of assessment guidelines , assignments were assumed to be ‘ doable ’ 2-weeks before the deadline and student effort was split equally over those two weeks .
2 . Where assessments varied by week within the cohort ( for example presentations given in one week or the next week ), the first possible week for completing the assessment was used .
3 . Other than contact time and asynchronous activities , all
>= 50 hours
student effort is expended on completing assessment and that there is no time within self-directed study for students to read broadly around a topic . This is reasonable for many STEM subjects but may vary depending on the module . The number of weeks where the workload module predicted effort in excess of 25 , 30 , 40 and 50 hours were determined . ( Table 3 )
40 – 49 hours
30 – 39 hours
25 – 29 hours
< 24 hours
13 / 14 16 / 17 18 / 19 19 / 20 20 / 21 21 / 22 0 1 0 0 0 1
1 1 1 1 0 3
3 1 4 4 1 1
0 2 0 1 3 1
8 7 7 6 8 7
Table 3 : High workload weeks based on the modules studied .
Results
Before the 14 / 15 academic year and changes brought in during a curriculum review that established BSc single honours and later MChem Chemistry , the first semester of third year for major route BSc Chemistry students comprised four 15-credit modules and half of the work , but no assessment for the 30-credit project module . From 14 / 15 the course comprised four 15-credit modules plus half of the 30-credit project module . A minor change in 17 / 18 replaced the 30-credit project module with two 15-credit modules . The requirement to undertake half the work
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