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Assessment Strategies — GoVenture CEO
Assessment Strategies — GoVenture CEO
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Playing a business simulation is one of the most memorable and meaningful educational experiences you can give to students. Complement this experience with an assessment and grading methodology that best aligns with your curriculum.
This document identifies a number of common methods so that you can choose one or a combination of options that best match your desired approach.
🧭 Summary of Assessment Methods
Choose one or a combination of the options in the table below that best match your preferences. Consider creating a rubric that assigns a percentage to each assessment method. The options are listed in no particular order and are detailed further in this document matching the blue numbers.
Simulation Participation and Performance
METHOD
PROS
CONS
1
1️⃣
Participation
recommended
Maximum fairness with results completely in student control. Fully automated.
Does not require, measure, or validate level of effort or thoughtful decision making.
2
2️⃣
Performance Metric
More competitive and performance based (although not fully validated). Fully automated.
A single metric is not a holistic or reliable measure of skill or effort. Some students could make a good effort and still not score high.
3
3️⃣
Rubric Score
recommended
Provides a more holistic measurement of skill and effort. Fully automated.
No significant cons. Some metrics may not align with a student’s strategy. Rubric score is not visible to students.
There are no rows in this table
Written Reports & Presentations
METHOD
PROS
CONS
1
4️⃣
Strategy Journal
recommended
Likely to improve decision-making and thoughtfulness by requiring students to articulate their strategies.
Assessment requires instructor or TA to review text-based journal, which takes time and can be more subjective.
2
5️⃣
Student Experience
Report or Presentation
Encourages students to reflect on their simulation experience and what they learned, and then organize and present their thoughts.
Assessment requires instructor or TA to review report, which can be more subjective and time-consuming.
There are no rows in this table
Tests
METHOD
PROS
CONS
1
6️⃣
Team Evaluation
Allows teammates to measure individual contributions. Fully automated. Can be repeated.
Requires review and assessment by instructor or TA. Results can be subjective. Only used with teams not individual play.
2
7️⃣
Competency Quiz
recommended if time
Ideal complement to simulation experience. Enhances learning and helps students identify knowledge deficiencies. Fully automated.
Requires 45 minutes to 2 hours to complete in class or as homework.
There are no rows in this table
Book and Other Activities
1
8️⃣
Learning & Activity Book
Easy to read with many examples to make fundamental business concepts easy to understand.
2
9️⃣
Ethics Report
A useful activity for helping students gain insight into ethical decision making. Requires manual review and grading by the instructor or TA, which takes time.
3
🔟
Financial Statements Activity
A spreadsheet-based activity that requires a student to build a Balance Sheet and Profit & Loss Statement using the General Ledger of the business played in the GoVenture CEO simulation.
4
1️⃣1️⃣
Ratio Analysis Activity
A spreadsheet-based activity that requires a student to build a Balance Sheet and Profit & Loss Statement using numbers from the business played in the GoVenture CEO simulation. The student must then use those numbers to complete a number of financial ratios.
5
1️⃣2️⃣
Accounting
A number of accounting features are available in GoVenture CEO that enable instructors to create their own activities for students.
There are no rows in this table
1️⃣ Participation
Participation means making and saving decisions for each period of the simulation.
PROS
CONS
1
Maximum fairness with results completely in student control. Fully automated.
Does not require, measure, or validate level of effort or thoughtful decision making. Students may not be as motivated to achieve high performance-based results (although there is always some level of social motivation inherent in a multiplayer competition).
There are no rows in this table
How It Works
For example, if a simulation is set to advance 10 periods, but a student only saves decisions for 7 periods, the Participation Score would be 70%.
Implementation
Participation-based grading is ideal for practice simulations. It can also be used as a partial grade for non-practice simulations.
There are two ways that participation-based grading can be implemented:
Playing a practice simulation is highly recommended. We strongly suggest that you assign a small grade (perhaps 5% of the total) to a practice simulation for PARTICIPATION only. This assures that students will be motivated to play, but not worried about performance. Individual play is much better than team play for practice.
With a graded simulation, consider setting a percentage of the grade on participation. For example, 40% of the grade is solely based on saving decisions in all periods of the simulation. This assures students of a strong base grade that is entirely within their control simply by putting some effort into the activity.
The SAVES MADE & MISSED REPORT automatically tracks the number of periods in which students saved their decisions and you can generate a score automatically, as shown below. Find this report under VIEW ALL REPORTS.
Tutorial Quiz
Simulations can include a Tutorial Quiz which prompts students to answer 13 questions about how to use the simulation. Answers are easily found as the purpose of this quiz is to encourage students to view the Tutorial Video and User Guide before playing the simulation. Instructors may choose to include the results of the Tutorial Quiz in student grades. Results are visible in the STATUS REPORT and RUBRIC REPORT. Only include the Tutorial Quiz with the first simulation.
2️⃣ Performance Metric
Scores are provided for all key business metrics in the simulation, such as Net Profit or Share Price.
PROS
CONS
1
More competitive and performance based (although not fully validated).
Fully automated.
A single metric is not a holistic or reliable measure of skill or effort. Some students could make a good effort and still score low (some could even score 0%).
There are no rows in this table
How It Works
The above metrics are scored on a scale from 0 to 100% where the business with the highest value is assigned 100% and all other business scores are normalized accordingly. For example, a business with $10 profit is assigned a score of 100% and a business with $3 profit is assigned 30%. Each score is updated every period, based on cumulative results for the entire duration of the simulation.
Implementation
The score described above should not be directly used as a grade, because it is possible for unprofitable businesses to receive a score of 0%, even though they may be applying a reasonable amount of effort. Instead, the grade should be based on a percentile comparison or other level-based method. For example, a maximum grade of 5 points for performance could be based upon the following levels:
The metrics are visible in a number of reports, including the Status Report, Performance DEBRIEF Report, and Coaching Report.
3️⃣ Rubric Score
The instructor (Simulation Manager) has access to a Rubric Report. The Rubric Report scores student performance on multiple business metrics demonstrated and evaluated in the simulation.
PROS
CONS
1
Provides a more holistic measurement of skill and effort (unlike other reports which provide detailed metrics and scores of specific business activity and results). Fully automated.
No significant cons. Some metrics may not align with a student’s strategy. Rubric score is not visible to students.
There are no rows in this table
How It Works
The Rubric Report enables you to generate a balanced score for each business based on a combination of metrics. You may choose a percentage for each metric for a total of 100%.
SAVES MADE
Demonstrates that the student has participated in each period.
PERFORMANCE SCORE
Based on the primary scoring metric of the simulation (usually Net Profit).
HUMAN RESOURCES
The HR Score earned by the student for their business.
ETHICS
The level of Ethics set by the student for their business.
RESULTS SCORE
Based on 10 business metrics that measure student decision making and performance results — see below.
The Results Score assesses player performance on the 10 business metrics listed below. Scores are based on cumulative results. Each metric is scored on a scale of 0 to 10 with all combined totaling 100.
Implementation
The Rubric Report is automatically generated and can be viewed by the instructor at any time. Students can view their own Rubric Reports (but not the data for other students) from within the Performance Report.
Instructors may also choose to create a custom grading formula by copying GoVenture reports and pasting them into Excel or other spreadsheet.
VIDEO — Rubric Report for Grading
4️⃣ Strategy Journal
GoVenture CEO includes a Strategy Journal where students can identify their strategies. The Strategy Journal includes a JOURNAL feature and a NOTES feature.
PROS
CONS
1
Likely to improve decision-making and thoughtfulness by requiring students to articulate their strategies.
Assessment requires instructor or TA to review text-based journal, which takes time and can be more subjective.
There are no rows in this table
How It Works
The JOURNAL feature (shown below) presents students with a series of options to choose from. This provides a simple and structured way to help direct students to think strategically.
For example, if selling automobiles, does the student want to sell automobiles with average features at a low price, or does the student want to sell luxury automobiles at a high price? The JOURNAL helps students identify their intended strategy.
The JOURNAL does not affect the results of the simulation. The JOURNAL records student intent so that intent can be compared with actual results. Adjustments can then be made to more closely align with an intended strategy, or the strategy can be adjusted. The JOURNAL can be can be set to be optional or required — required is recommended.
The Strategy Journal NOTES feature enables students to blog about their decisions as they play each period of the simulation. This provides a useful historical record of student thinking and can form part of an assessment. Past entries cannot be edited. NOTES can be can be set to be optional or required.
A maximum of 2,500 characters (approx 400 words) can be entered in the Journal for each period of a particular business. To view student Strategy Journals, in the Manage tile choose ALL REPORTS > Performance Reports and scroll down to the very bottom of the report.
Implementation
ALL REPORTS > Performance Reports (scroll to very bottom of report)
5️⃣ Student Experience Report
Click the links above and choose FILE > Download
6️⃣ Team Evaluation
7️⃣ Competency Quiz
Competency Quiz Questions
Module
Business Theory Questions
Simulation Questions
1
Budgeting, Revenue, Profit
5
2
2
Pricing
6
1
3
Reseller Discount
3
1
4
Research & Development
2
1
5
Production & Inventory
6
3
6
Product Expiration
1
1
7
Carrying Costs
1
1
8
Sales & Marketing
8
3
9
Multiple Territories
1
0
10
Advertising
3
1
11
Human Resources
12
1
12
Financial Statements
0
1
13
Balance Sheet
2
0
14
Profit & Loss
2
0
15
Cash Flow
2
0
16
Stock
6
1
17
Loans
5
1
18
Ethics
1
1
19
Business Strategy
4
1
There are no rows in this table
70
Sum
20
Sum
8️⃣ Learning Guide & Activity Book
9️⃣ Ethics Report
Instructors may choose to have students prepare written or oral presentations or reports on ethics. An Ethics Report template is available for instructors to customize and provide to students. 5 questions are included which can be downloaded, edited, and sent to students. Consider including limits on the length of each answer or the entire report.
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