Common Impactful Assignment (CIA): An Innovative Approach to Reduce Student Stress in WIL Programmes
Anxiety; Continuous evaluation; Project assignment; Stress; Student well-being; Work-integrated learning
In spite of its advantages, working professionals enrolled in Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) degree or professional certificate programmes frequently express heightened stress and anxiety attributable to the programme's demands. This paper proposes pedagogical enhancements to alleviate stress in working professionals enrolled in WIL programmes while enhancing the quality of learning. The paper proposes three pedagogical approaches collectively known as Common Impactful Assignment(CIA) to enhance the way assignment components of the courses are evaluated. The first concept advocates for a shared common assignment problem statement across multiple courses in a semester. Building on this, the second concept extends the interconnection of courses across different semesters, crafting unified assignment statements that underscore the programme's thematic cohesion. These ideas, tailored for degree programmes, facilitate a broader understanding of the interdependencies between various courses, fostering a comprehensive knowledge base. For more focused and practical-oriented professional certificate programmes, the third concept suggests a project-based common problem statement replacing the entire programme's assignment components. This overarching project, aligned with the programme's central theme, aims to streamline the interconnected nature of courses in such focused programmes. The paper provides sample assignment problem statements for each scenario, outlining their respective benefits and challenges, and discusses appropriate assessment methods. Recognizing the psychological well-being of learners, the paper suggests a methodology for assessing determinants such as stress, anxiety, happiness, and overall well-being. In evaluating WIL students before and after exposure to these new pedagogies, this pre-post assessment method analyses the psychological benefits of innovative teaching approaches. The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2025.
Gudino, Lucy J.; Narang, Nishit; Vimal, S.P.; Mathew, Leemamol; Parameswaran, Seetha
Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems;Volume;1206 LNNS;pp.225-244
Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
Restricted Access; Hardcopy may be available in the library
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-96-0201-8_13 https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105013028406?origin=resultslist
Gudino L.J., Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, BITS Pilani, Pilani, India; Narang N., Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, BITS Pilani, Pilani, India; Vimal S.P., Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, BITS Pilani, Pilani, India; Mathew L., School of Psychological Sciences, Christ University, Bengaluru, India; Parameswaran S., Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, BITS Pilani, Pilani, India