BUSINESS MANAGEMENT DISTANCE EDUCATION RESEARCH ON YEAR MARK ASSESSMENT POLICY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA

The current tuition policy of the Department of Business Management at the University of South Africa encourages, but does not compel students to submit assignments under the semester system. A relatively small percentage of students submit the voluntary assignment, thereby forfeiting the benefit of the learning experience and assessment feedback from the respective lecturers. The Department of Business Management is concerned that this voluntary assignment assessment policy impacts negatively on the standard of learning and assessment within the Department. It hence decided to implement, on a trial basis for 2003 and 2004, a year-mark option assignment policy for two of its undergraduate semester courses. The aim was to assess whether such an option contributed towards the improvement of examination results and the enhancement of the learning experience of students registered for the relevant courses. This paper reports on the findings of the year-mark option assignment policy for the second year degree course MNX202-J (marketing management) and the third year degree course MNF301-5 (financial management) for the trial period 2003 to 2004. The findings are in the form of (1) statistics on the percentage number of students who submitted assignments, average marks obtained and examination results statistics during the trial period: (2) the results of an opinion survey questionnaire sent to students to obtain their feedback on the value of compulsory year-mark option assignments; and (3) feedback and comments from facilitators involved in the year-mark option exercise. Finally recommendations are made on the way forward for future assessment in the Department of Business Management.