Motivation to engage: piloting techniques to encourage student engagement with unusual learning activities

Problem-Based Learning (PBL) requires that the educational experience be student-cented and situated in a real-world context. Further, the motivation to learn is largely driven by the student's expectation and experience of assessment procedures. It is a challenge to design assessment processes that satisfy the simultaneous requirements of educational certification, quality assurance and problem realism, realistic outcomes whilst still encouraging creativity and deep leaning. This paper reports on a trial assessment strategy that seeks to address the challenge in a PBL context.