An exploration of the impact that continuous, summative assessment has on how university mathematics students spend their study time

A move to modularisation has seen an increase in the amount of continuous, summative assessments undergraduate students must complete. Students advocate for these assessments as it encourages them to remain engaged, and lecturers feel compelled to give them to ensure students do not neglect their modules. This phenomenon has been dubbed “the assessment arms race”. In this study we examine the impact that continuous, summative assessment has on how Stage 3 mathematics undergraduate students in University College Dublin choose to spend their study time. Students completed weekly timesheets reporting how much time they
spent on activities in their six modules in trimester 2, 2019-20. They were asked to describe the factors that influenced how they spent their study time, and if there were other activities they would have liked to complete. Although data collection was cut short owing to COVID-19, an analysis of the data up to that point provides clear evidence of the assessment arms race in action and highlights the behavioural impact that it has on how students approach their learning. We examine recommendations, and discuss possible solutions, to address this.