This document describes a case study of a collaboration between two modules, Global Marketing and Professional Studies, to improve assessment outcomes for international top-up students. The collaboration included targeted support in Professional Studies on case studies relevant to Global Marketing, providing students a planning grid to structure assignments, extra workshops by the Global Marketing leader, and a detailed assignment breakdown. Results showed improvements, with a higher percentage of international students scoring 50% or above after the interventions. The collaboration aimed to help international students better understand the context and expectations of UK higher education assessments.

1. Case study of a cross-course
collaboration to improve the
assessment outcomes of top-up
students on:
BA (Hons) International Business
Management
Giovanna Battiston and Diana Conheeney

2. Who are we?
Giovanna Battiston
Module Leader: Level 6 Global Marketing
Sheffield Business School
Email: g.battiston@shu.ac.uk
Diana Conheeney
Module Leader: Level 6 Professional Studies
Sheffield Business School
Email: d.conheeney@shu.ac.uk

3. Aim of presentation
An overview of how cross-course collaboration
has helped to improve the assessment
outcomes of international top-up students on a
level six module that is part of the management
programme of courses delivered by Sheffield
Business School.

4. Context
The module = Global Marketing, a level six
module that is a core component of the
course taken by BA Business Management
International students.
The students = mainly Chinese studying the
final year of their degree on site at Sheffield
Business School together with students from
other courses.

5. Professional
Studies
Module
specific
language
practice
Socio-
cultural
Employability
Academic
skills

6. The Global Marketing assignment
Task one (40%)
An analysis into the global market opportunities
for a firm of your choice from your home country
Task two (60%)
An international, medium-term strategic
marketing plan for the firm that you have
analysed in the first task.

7. Problem
International top-up students’ assessment
outcomes in the Global Marketing
assessment overall are consistently lower
that those of local students.

8. Intervention 1
Targeted support in Professional Studies
Pre-reading and discussion of key case studies
prior to Global Marketing seminars.

9. Intervention 2: Planning grid
Assessment Criteria Which lecture? Theoretical
frameworks. Why?
References
(including core texts,
business databases
and others)
1. A background to the
organisation that
explains its current
market position
(strengths and
weaknesses),
international marketing
experience, and its
need to explore new
markets.
1.
2.
3.
4.
2
3
4
5

10. Intervention 3
Extra workshops delivered by Global
Marketing module leader for international
students
Intervention 4
Detailed breakdown of assignment task for all
students delivered as lecture

11. Results
50 - 59 60 - 69 70 +
2013 13% 3% 0%
2014 27% 10% 3%
International top-up student assessment outcomes as a
percentage of top-up cohort.

12. Challenge for next year
MacLachlan & Reid (1994) identify four kinds of interpretive framing
processes the reader may draw upon to interpret a text:
 Extracontextual: background knowledge and experience of the
norms and practices of the UK educational context
 Intracontextual: includes cohesive devices in spoken discourse
and non-academic texts such as emails and noticeboards
 Circumstantial: features identifying the text or discourse type and
associated norms, maybe behavioural or textual
 Intercontextual: linking background academic culture with UK
Higher Education

13. References
 ERICKSON, F. (1982). Classroom discourse as improvisation:
relationships between academic task structure and social
participation structure in lessons. (pp 153-81) In WILKINSON, L.
(ed.) Communication in the Classroom. London: Academic Press.
 GOURLAY, Lesley. (2006) Framing the discourse practices of higher
education: Academic literacies, hidden cultures and the transition
experience of postgraduate Chinese students. HERDSA
 MACLACHLAN, G. & REID, I. (1994). Framing and Interpretation.
Melbourne: Melbourne University Press
 ROSS, R. (1975). Ellipsis and the structure of expectation. San Jose
Occasional Papers in Linguistics 1: 183-191.