Undergraduate Student Performance in a Structural Analysis Course: Continuous Assessment before and after the COVID-19 Outbreak

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic situation in 2020 forced educational institutions worldwide to fully adopt online learning for both teaching and assessment. However, this change may lead to less satisfactory learning outcomes, if the online technologies used have not been adequately applied. This study compares student engagement and performance through online continuous assessment in a one-semester structural analysis course for undergraduate architecture students before and after the pandemic outbreak. Online continuous assessment assignments had already been deployed and validated in the course evaluation system before the outbreak, and they were further leveraged during the online course. These assignments consisted of three weekly Moodle questionnaires throughout each of the fifteen course weeks, which determined the continuous assessment score. More than 200 students participated in each period. The results showed that shifting to online education affected continuous assessment outcomes very little in terms of participation rates and student performance. The possible underlying causes for the slight differences found between the two academic years are also discussed. The results highlight the robustness of the continuous assessment method used and emphasize the importance of having developed and validated online learning procedures to broach learning activities if contingency situations are required.