The power of flowcharts - Enabling simplicity and consistency in the grading process

Several business management literatures suggest that a flowchart is an effective visual representation of a process which enables the audience to easily see the process flow as well as specific steps via arrows, simple words and numbers (Tague 2005; Vu-Ngoc et al. 2018). Having a step-by-step list of exactly how the process is completed mitigates ambiguity and achieves consistency by colleagues to complete each step correctly, confirm and verify that they have completed each necessary phase, and learn the required steps easily (Rosing et al. 2014).

A flowchart was developed to visualise a grading process for one of the biggest Marketing modules at Level 5. In particular, it was developed for grading students who were not present at a summative on-the-day group presentation assessment. Students may be absent for numerous reasons on the day of presentations, and it was causing a challenge for the teaching team how to grade them in a consistent way. There were more than ten tutors on the teaching team, and not everyone understood the grading process for those who were absent. This flowchart provided tutors with a practical and consistent solution to assess if their grading aligns with the departmental and school guidelines. Whilst the flowchart does provide an improvement in the standardisation of the process, it is necessary that the reason for absence should be carefully investigated case-by-case.

This presentation explores the opportunities of this particular flowchart being adapted to the module, course and school needs and regulations, and it suggests further use of flowcharts to communicate any grading processes to colleagues.