What is learning gain?
Learning gain has traditionally been defined and measured in a number of different ways (HEFCE, 2015). The Higher Education Funding Council England (HEFCE) currently defines learning gain as follows:
“…the difference between the skills, competencies, content knowledge and personal development demonstrated by students at two points in time.”
How do we currently assess student learning?
Currently, users are assessed at regular intervals throughout our learning modules. As users progress through each lesson they are tested on their understanding and recall of the content they have most recently engaged with. These assessments serve to track user progress and to feed into our understanding of their development as learners.
How is this impact measured?
The impact of our current assessment tools are measured for each student via a lesson progress tracker, the number of bullions they have collected and their % of correct answers. Lesson progress is monitored for each module so that user progress can be tracked across different modules simultaneously. The number of bullions collected relates to their performance on our in-module assessment questions.
What changes are we looking at?
By taking into account factors such as: the frequency that we assess users, how we assess, and how progress is supported; we aim to optimise the design of our modules to ensure learning gain is demonstrable and can be clearly illustrated to our university partners.
Following a review of best practice in the field of learning gain, the HEFCE (2015) identified the five most commonly used methods of measuring learning gain in higher education as: Grades, Surveys, Standardised Tests, Mixed Methods and Other qualitative methods.
As such, we will utilise a mixed-methods approach to assess learning gain within Blackbullion’s platform. A mixed-methods approach involves using a variety of learning gain measures to develop a robust understanding of user learning gain.