Alternative assessment to missing a lab

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Dear all,
I wonder if any of you have an alternative assessment mechanism in place for students that miss a substantial proportion of the lab component of a unit. We do not have any in place at the moment but I am looking for ideas that are practical to apply and does not increase work load too much. The reason being is that we have some students that miss labs for good reasons (illness, family issues etc). These students usually get exemption from being penalised for missing the lab and we work out their lab mark out of the labs that they do attend. We also have some that miss labs out of laziness, not being organised or not caring. These students get a zero grade. However, in both cases the students are not doing that particular practical that they missed. They are not getting experience in that experimental technique. So if a students misses over a quarter of the lab component, for which ever reason, what alternative assessment could be put in place?
Any thoughts on what works, what doesn't or what is important to consider are most welcome.
Cheers
Dino

Madeleine Schultz's picture

Hi Dino,
here are some of the QUT solutions.
At first year, they have 6 labs and are allowed to miss at most one (with a medical certificate); then their prac mark is calculated from the other 5. Otherwise they get zero. If they miss 2 or more with no medical they are not allowed to sit the exam because successful completion of the prac part is a precondition of passing the unit. (note - very difficult to implement this in practice but the threat is effective)
In a prac-heavy unit I have also had students that pass the exam but fail due to low prac scores (ie they attended but averaged less than 50% on that part). Then I made their supplementary assessment a practical session rather than another exam (which I already know they can do). This is not a cheap solution and I've only done it once for 6 students but it was effective - they had to do a simple titration but as a prac exam.
Not an easy issue; of course many students find the pracs the most interesting part so the question is, do you need to improve the experiments so that they want to come???
 
Madeleine