Q. What is the most complex part of the OBE process ?
Ans: Assessment & Evaluation (A&E).
Q. What specific in A & E ?
Ans Arriving at Levels of course attainment by a class on various assessments, and which when summed and averaged get the magic figure of Course Outcome ?
Q. Explain so that a layman could crack Course Outcome attainment with utter ease.
Ans. I will begin with Course Outcomes👇🏽
🤽🏻♀️Map your planned assessments with COs of a course before you measure
-Before giving any assessment to student, be written examination, quiz, assignment, presentation, practical, etc. map every question or assessment to the relevant Course Outcome (CO). Give each assessment its relative weight according to the marks it carries.
For example, if a 50-mark paper contains questions carrying 20, 15, 5, 5 and 5 marks, their respective weights are 40%, 30%, 10%, 10% and 10% of that paper.
🤽🏻♀️Fix the threshold. Decide the minimum expected performance for each assessment. Ideally, use the average percentage performance of the previous three years. Where three-year data are unavailable, the previous year’s class average may provide the starting benchmark. Suppose the threshold fixed is 45% marks.
🤽🏻♀️Find the attainment level. Now see what percentage of students achieved at least that 45% threshold:
🕊️Below 60% students achieving threshold = Level 0
🕊️60–69% students achieving set threshold = Level 1
🕊️70–79% students achieving set threshold = Level 2
🕊️80% and above students achieving the set threshold= Level 3
➡️ Now bring in the weight. Do not simply average the attainment levels. Multiply the attainment level of each assessment by its assigned weight and then aggregate the results. This gives the weighted attainment of the CO.
A simple example makes it clear 👇🏽
Suppose CO1 is assessed through three questions/components carrying 20, 15 and 5 marks. Their relative weights within CO1 are therefore 50%, 37.5% and 12.5%.
Assume the three components achieve Level 3, Level 2 and Level 1 respectively.
Weighted CO1 attainment:
(3 × 0.50) + (2 × 0.375) + (1 × 0.125)
= 1.50 + 0.75 + 0.125
= 2.375
Thus, CO1 attainment = 2.38 on a 0–3 scale. Similarly CO2 and so on. Add up and arrive at the final CO attainment.
This CO has a relevance to one or more POs and it would impact them similarly based on their relevance (mapping) that was done by you at the very beginning. The same way their weight relevance weight factor would be applied to the respective PO.
So the whole game: Map ➡️ Fix threshold ➡️ Find attainment level ➡️ Apply weight ➡️ Aggregate ➡️ Arrive at the magic figure
The important principle is that a 20-mark assessment must influence the final CO attainment more than a 5-mark assessment. Otherwise, marks may be unequal, but their influence on the final Course Outcome would wrongly become equal.
I couldn’t have made it more simpler, friends !
✅ Now let me move next to POs/PSOs assessment and attainment 👇🏽
Every PO has a basket of its own Courses which are relevant to it on scale of 0 to 3. Remember you mapped Courses with POs right at the beginning.
Now the course outcomes you arrived at each course during the full length of the batch (often 2 to 4 years) will go into each basket. But before you basket them turn them into the true value they add to their basket PO.
For example ;
Course X with its 2.38 attainment and mapped to PO-1 in the level 2 will have a true value of; 1.587 (2.38×2/3)=1.59. Say, If it had mapped 3, the true value would have remained intact 2.38×3/3=2.38
So, the Program Coordinator keeps receiving Course attainment levels from the faculty and after arriving at true value keeping putting in the related PO baskets. Likewise over the length of batch all Programs get filled in. This is 80% of your total Programs value as Direct attainment of each PO.
We will talk about Indirect attainment, some other day.
-Prof JR Sharma: Mentor to the HEIs. Interpretation to NBA documents is pure personal
