Abstract

Students are generally required to demonstrate diverse skills when writing their bachelor thesis. Accordingly, examiners are expected to consider all these skills when assessing the thesis, regularly with one overall grade. In this study, we examine which criteria of a rubric contribute most to the overall assessment. The study is performed through quantitative analyses of 318 theses of undergraduate biology students. The analyses demonstrate that all criteria scores are predictive, but that scientific quality and professional attitude give the best prediction of thesis grade, together with structure. The predictiveness of scientific quality and professional attitude correspond with the instructions given to examiners that these are important criteria to consider. Presentation-related criteria scores on writing skills and expressing catchy and justifying titles give the lowest prediction of grade. This study identifies that some criteria appear more predictive for low grades than for high grades, with professional attitude being a good predictor for low grades and abstract being a good predictor for high grades. We recommend similar analyses for students to help them prioritise the most relevant criteria, for supervisors to instruct students on these criteria, and for education managers to evaluate whether bachelor theses are assessed on the criteria they find most relevant.

摘要

学生在撰写学士学位论文时通常需要展示各种技能。因此，审查员在评估论文时应考虑所有这些技能，并定期给一个总分。在这项研究中，我们检查了哪些评分标准对整体评估的贡献最大。该研究是通过对 318 篇生物学本科生的论文进行定量分析来进行的。分析表明，所有标准分数都是预测性的，但科学质量和专业态度与结构一起给出了对论文等级的最佳预测。科学素质与专业态度的预见性与给予审查员的说明一致，这些说明是需要考虑的重要标准。在写作技巧和表达朗朗上口和合理的标题上，与演讲相关的标准分数给出了最低的成绩预测。本研究发现，某些标准似乎对低年级的预测比对高分更具预测性，专业态度是低年级的良好预测指标，摘要是高年级的良好预测指标。我们建议对学生进行类似的分析，以帮助他们优先考虑最相关的标准，让主管指导学生了解这些标准，并让教育经理评估是否根据他们认为最相关的标准对本科论文进行评估。