Gérald’s approach to understanding his students’ reasoning
Gérald recognized all the benefits of the assessment interview, but he also wanted to avoid putting too much stress on his students. Consequently, he adopted a soft and supportive approach that worked very well.
Preparatory interview
First, he holds an initial interview after students submit an assignment. Instead of grading the assignment in the traditional way, Gérald meets with each student individually to correct the assignment and discuss it in person. (This assignment counts as a summative evaluation, but it is not part of the final evaluation.)
The purpose of this preparatory interview is to build students’ confidence and help them become familiar with the approach. Gérald’s goal is for these meetings to feel somewhat like a workplace team meeting. For instance, on Fridays, a team of technicians might get together to discuss their respective projects, share the drawings they’ve worked on during the week, and offer constructive feedback to each other. The preparatory interview enables students to see that Gérald’s approach is genuinely supportive and truly valuable for their learning.
The meeting takes place during class time. While the rest of the students work independently on another assignment, Gérald meets with each student in turn to discuss the previous assignment. Gérald goes over the work with the student and asks questions about certain elements that may be unclear. For example:
- “Which are the reference surfaces used for the tolerances on the drawing?”
- “How did you choose those surfaces?”
- etc.
The interview enables Gérald to truly understand his students’ reasoning. He can evaluate their understanding of key concepts far more effectively than by simply reviewing the drawings on paper.
Beyond that, it’s also a highly valuable learning experience for the students. Their conversations with Gérald and the explanations he provides help them understand their mistakes and what they need to do differently in the future. (How many students never even look at the feedback we write on their assignments? The interview ensures that each student receives and values Gérald’s feedback.)
During the interview, Gérald fills out a 4-level observation grid for 4 evaluation criteria. He defined these criteria based on the elements of competency targeted in his course. When selecting the criteria, Gérald was mindful, however, that oral communication skills are not included in the elements of competency for the course. He therefore doesn’t assess how well students express themselves orally, but rather their understanding of the course content. (In fact, the situation is similar to written assessments. Some students who fully understand the course concepts may not be particularly skilled at expressing themselves in writing. In that regard, oral interviews allow for interaction. Follow-up questions can be asked to clarify points that may seem less clear in the student’s explanation.)
At the end of the interview, Gérald is able to give students an idea of the grade they will receive, thanks to his observation grid.
Questionnaire and observation grid used by Gérald during the preparatory interview [in French]
The students respond enthusiastically. They can immediately apply Gérald’s feedback to the following assignment (the one they have been working on in class during the individual interviews).
Final interview
The 2nd interview takes place at the end of the semester and is graded as a final summative evaluation. It focuses on the students’ final project. This project has been partly carried out in teams of 3, with each student responsible for drawing specific parts of an assembly.
Before the interview, Gérald sends students a list of sample questions to help them know what to expect. However, he adapts his questions to the specifics of each project and the work completed by each student.
Gérald makes a point of correcting the assignments as quickly as possible, then meets with the students as a team. He feels that a team interview is less stressful than a 1-on-1 meeting. It also enables him to meet with all his students within the regular class time.
Gérald asks each student questions related to the parts they were responsible for. He questions them about their mistakes to better understand their reasoning, but also about the elements they did well, to destabilize them a little. Students are allowed to interact and guide one another if needed.
The interview counts for 35% of the final project grade (with 25% allocated to the team-based modelling and 40% to the individual design work).
To determine the grade of the interview, Gérald uses a 4-level observation grid based on 3 criteria.
The observation grid used by Gérald for the final interview [in French]
Gérald determines each student’s final grade after the interviews, but he usually has a good idea of their approximate grade by the end of the meeting. He discusses this with the students at the end of their interview, so they can benefit from his feedback (for example, “When I asked you that question, I was hoping to hear something like this …”). This also helps reduce stress, as students know roughly where they stand while waiting for their final grade.
Gérald spends a little more time with students who are struggling or at risk of failing to ensure they understand why the grade they will receive is justified. (Feedback is generally given to the team as a whole, but in more sensitive situations, Gérald may speak to students individually, though he has only done this once so far.)
Gérald allocates 15 minutes for each team interview and schedules a 5-minute buffer between them to complete his evaluation. However, he does tend to go over time slightly …
Analysis of the results of Gérald’s students
Gérald created a graph to compare the grades his students received for the interviews with the grades for the rest of the project.
Comparison of interview grades with rest-of-project grades for the Winter 2024 students [in French]
The rest-of-project grade includes both a team component and an individual component. For example, student #1 on the graph received a grade close to the passing grade for his drawings, but his teammates informed Gérald that he had not contributed at all to the “shared” portion of the project. Indeed, his interview result reflects a very poor understanding of the concepts.
In Fall 2024, another student found himself in the opposite situation: he received a failing grade for his drawings but a very high grade in the interview, which enabled him to pass the course. Between the submission of the drawings and the interview, the student went to see Gérald and said he’d had an epiphany and that he had suddenly grasped several concepts he had struggled with, despite many meetings with both the teacher and a tutor. During the interview, this breakthrough in understanding was clear. His grade was not excellent, but it was sufficient to pass. The student had met the minimum threshold required to enter the workforce.
Aside from a few exceptions, the interview grades and the rest-of-project grades are relatively similar.
Sylvain’s approach to evaluating individual understanding in team projects
Sylvain, for his part, doesn’t conduct a preparatory interview. His students are in their final semester. He explains to them that the stress of an assessment interview is similar to that of a job interview, so they might as well prepare for it!
Since Sylvain builds strong relationships with his students, by the time of the interview they feel confident and are not hindered by stress.
In both of his courses, Sylvain holds 10-to-12-minute individual meetings with each student at the end of the semester. The interviews are part of the final evaluation for each course. The meetings focus on the students’ final projects and take place before Sylvain has graded the projects.
In the Quality Control course, students arrive slightly early in order to have 10 minutes to review documents that will be the subject of the evaluation. During this preparation period, students are in a small room located within a larger space where Sylvain conducts the interviews. This way, while Sylvain is talking with one student, another is preparing, and a 3rd one is waiting in the hallway for their turn.
The documents students review in the small room contain the report from a project similar to the one they completed for their final team project. The documents specify that the results presented in the report were unsatisfactory, and another set of measurements has been provided. Students are informed that the interview will cover both the original report and the new measurements.
In the Operations Management course, students don’t need to prepare anything ahead of time. During the interviews, Sylvain asks each student to explain, among other things, what they were responsible for in the team project. What did they understand of their part of the work? What aspects were they not involved with? (Which sections of the report were they not in charge of?) What did they understand about those aspects? Since the course objectives include developing teamwork skills, Sylvain also asks questions about team communication, the strategies implemented to ensure effective collaboration, and other related topics.
Sylvain asks 1 question for each element of the competency he needs to evaluate, along with 4 or 5 possible follow-up questions (which vary from student to student). He tries to let the conversation flow naturally rather than sticking too closely to a strict interview plan.
While the student is speaking, Sylvain takes notes. He also records the conversation by launching a Teams meeting on his laptop, just in case he wants to listen again to certain parts (which hasn’t happened so far), or in case a grade review is ever requested (which also hasn’t happened).
After the interview, Sylvain only needs a few seconds to complete his evaluation grid. However, unlike Gérald, he doesn’t give any information about the grade at the end of the interview; he shares the grades with students only once all the interviews have been completed.
Sylvain’s evaluation grid for the Operations Management course [in French]
Sylvain doesn’t usually have enough time to conduct all of his 10-to-12-minute interviews during the regular class period, and therefore often holds some interviews before or after the scheduled class time. It’s still less time-consuming for him than grading written assignments or exams!
Analysis of the results of Sylvain’s students
Since students can communicate with one another outside class while others conduct their interviews (which can sometimes span several days), it stands to reason that those who are interviewed last might have an advantage by knowing in advance the types of questions they may be asked. However, Sylvain lets students choose their interview time from the available slots. As a result, the most anxious and high-performing students usually go first. In the end, there is actually a slight inverse correlation between interview grades and the order in which students are interviewed.
Students’ interview grades in the order in which they were interviewed in the Operations Management course during Winter 2024 [in French]. While one might have expected grades to improve over time, the opposite trend emerged.
Students’ interview grades in the order in which they were interviewed in the Quality Control course during Winter 2024 [in French]. The same situation as in the Operations Management course can be observed here too.
In any event, since Sylvain’s questions evaluate skills acquired throughout the semester, learning the questions a few minutes in advance is not enough to understand concepts that students have struggled to master over several weeks.
Sylvain also examined the relationship between the grade a team received for its project and each student’s individual grade during the interview.
Students’ interview grades as a function of their team project grade (in teams of 4 or 5) in the Operations Management course during Winter 2024 [in French]. (Vertically aligned points correspond to students from the same team.)
Students’ interview grades as a function of their team project grade (in teams of 2 or 3) in the Quality Control course during Winter 2024 [in French]. (Vertically aligned points correspond to students from the same team.)
The graphs highlight the usefulness of the interview: some students who submitted “weak projects” performed very well in the interview, demonstrating a strong grasp of the key concepts. Conversely, other interviews suggested that certain students may not have contributed significantly to their team’s high project grade.
Student preparation
Before the interviews, Sylvain was impressed by the initiative taken by a small group of students: different teams sat down together to present their projects and ask each other questions.
Simulating interviews may well be the most effective way to prepare for one! We definitely plan to encourage all our students to do this in the future.
Student feedback
In Fall 2024, Sylvain shared an anonymous feedback survey with his students at the end of the semester (after final grades were submitted). 13 students responded in each course (likely the same students in both cases). All of them said they appreciated the interview format.
Respondents indicated that preparing for the interview was not more demanding than preparing for a written exam. One student even said it required no preparation at all: since they were familiar with their project, they didn’t need to study specifically for the interview.
Students reported that the interviews were no more stressful than written exams. Many said they felt somewhat nervous before the interview, but the stress quickly subsided once the 1st question was asked. (Sylvain intentionally began each interview with a general and easy question.)
All survey respondents said their grade following the interview met their expectations. Several even said their grade was better than expected.
To be repeated!
We are both very pleased with the results we’ve seen from using this new evaluation method, and we’ll definitely keep using it.
After seeing the positive impact of immediate feedback on his students’ work, Gérald plans to increase the number of preparatory interviews from 1 to 4 in the Winter 2025 semester!
Sylvain will continue teaching both the Operations Management and Quality Control courses. In Quality Control, he intends to increase the weighting of the interview in the final evaluation. His goal is to give fairer final grades to the few students who currently pass the course solely because of the team project, even when their interview indicates they don’t fully understand the course material.
What’s more, another teacher will be teaching Quality Control alongside Sylvain (they’ll each have their own group). This new teacher will also conduct assessment interviews. He’s a bit nervous about it, but we’re confident he’ll be sold on the method once he’s tried it!
If you’re already using interviews to evaluate your students, let us know how you go about it in the comments. If you’re not yet using them but think this could help you evaluate the competency of your students more accurately, we’d also love to hear from you!
