Improving assessment through double-blind marking: Lessons learned in a UPOU course

Joane V Serrano
University of the Philippines Open University
Los Baños, the Philippines

Kunchon Jeotee
Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University
Thailand

Assessment is one of the most important areas to consider in the offering of online courses. It allows both the teacher and the students to measure whether the desired student competencies based on the course objectives have been achieved. Assessment in online learning has been considered as a challenge by many scholars (Hannafin et al. 2003; Oncu and Cakir 2011; Vonderwell and Boboc 2010). As part of its commitment to improve the learning experience of its students, the UP Open University (UPOU) tries to continually review and improve its assessment strategies. Improvements can be made at the institutional, programme or even course level. This paper is part of an ongoing effort to enhance UPOU's Master of Environment and Natural Resources (MENRM) programme. It focuses on the use of a full double-blind marking approach in which the students' final examinations are marked by two 'blind' markers. This paper aims to determine the correlation of the scores of two blind markers using the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients. It also tries to provide insights into the lessons learned from using this marking approach, in this collaborative research and development project between UPOU and Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University (STOU).