Close
New research project to explore staff and student experiences of capstone assessments, to help shape future policy at UCL.
What were the first year capstone assessments?
In the summer of 2020, UCL moved all planned first-year assessments to a single capstone assignment as an emergency response to the national lockdown resulting from the covid-19 pandemic.
This was done to alleviate stress for students and staff and to avoid overloading online platforms.
Capstone assessments aimed to allow students to synthesize their learning and demonstrate in a single piece of assessment how they had achieved the intended learning outcomes for their programme of study.
About the research project
The choice to assess first-year students with a single capstone assessment was a unique response in the sector and fairly innovative in its own right. We were keen to explore the experiences of staff and students involved in them.
The outcomes of this evaluation, completed in November 2021, will help shape future assessment policy at UCL and could provide the basis for further research in this area.
Download the capstone evaluation report [Word]
Project Team
Core Researchers - based in UCL Arena Centre
- Jesper Hansen, Lecturer (Teaching)
- Dr Jason Davies, Associate Professor (Teaching)
- Abbie King, Strategic Project Manager (Education & Student Experience)
UCL ChangeMakers Student Interns
- Alex Drijver-Ludlam – IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education and Society
- Gift Kalua – Bartlett School of Construction & Project Management
Advisory Team
- Prof Deborah Gill (Pro-Vice Provost, Student Experience)
- Derfel Owen (Director of Education Services and Transformation),
- Helen Matthews (Director of Academic Services)
- Prof Sam Smidt (Director of the UCL Arena Centre)