Using Merrill’s First Principles of Instruction to Reshape the Assessments Structure of a Fundamental First-Year Course

In this paper, a group a students taking a fundamental first-year course are scrutinized, where the method of assessment had to suddenly change from physically writing semester tests and examinations on campus, to applying Merrill’s First Principles of Instruction to introduce continuous assessment in 2020. Educational environments are continuously evolving to increase the quality of teaching, learning and assessments with classes that have huge numbers. Academic Information Management (AIM 101), with 1000 students in 2020, made the transition to continuous assessment and the resulting data from the assessments clearly indicate that, not only do students perform better over the course of the semester and in the semester tests, they also attempt the assignments and tests more frequently, leading to an overall increase in distinctions obtained for the course. It was subsequently decided to keep the course online in future and to continue using continuous assessments. Future research will look at different learning styles of students taking fundamental courses and the role of lifelong learning in these courses.