marking criteria for oral presentation

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Oral presentations

Oral assessments offer teachers the opportunity to assess the structure and content of a presentation as well as students’ capacity to answer any subsequent probing questions. They can be formatted as individual presentations or small-group presentations; they can be done face-to-face or online, and they can be given behind closed doors or in front of peers. The most common format involves one or two students presenting during class time with a follow-up question and answer session. Because of logistics and the demands of the curriculum, oral presentations tend to be quite short – perhaps 10 minutes for an undergraduate and 15-20 minutes for a postgraduate. Oral presentations are often used in a formative capacity but they can also be used as summative assessments. The focus of this form of assessment is not on students’ capacity to find relevant information, sources and literature but on their capacity to package such materials into a logically coherent exposition.

Advantages of oral presentations

• Allows for probing questions that test underlying assumptions.
• Quick to mark – immediate feedback is possible.
• Allow students to demonstrate a logical flow/development of an idea.
• Presentation skills are valued by employers.
• Students are familiar with this assessment method.

Challenges of oral presentations

Can be stressful for some students.

Non-native speakers may be at a disadvantage.

Can be time-consuming.

Limited scope for inter-rater checks.

A danger that ‘good speakers’ get good marks.

How students might experience oral presentations

Students are often familiar with giving oral presentations and many will have done so in other courses. However, they may focus too much on certain aspects to the detriment of others. For example, some students may be overly concerned with the idea of standing up in front of their peers and may forget that their focus should be on offering a clear narrative. Other students may focus on the style of their presentation and overlook the importance of substance. Others yet may focus on what they have to say without considering the importance of an oral presentation being primarily for the benefit of the audience. The use of PowerPoint in particular should be addressed by teachers beforehand, so that students are aware that this should be a tool for supporting their presentation rather than the presentation in itself. Most oral presentations are followed by a question and answer phase – sometimes the questions will come from peers, sometimes they will come from teachers, and sometimes they will come from both. It is good practice to let students know about the format of the questions – especially if their capacity to answer them is part of the marking criteria.

Reliability, validity, fairness and inclusivity of oral presentations

Oral assessments are often marked in situ and this means that the process for allocating marks needs to be reliable, valid and fair when used under great time pressure. Through having a clearly defined marking structure with a set of pre-established, and shared, criteria, students should be aware of what they need to do to access the highest possible marks. Precise marking criteria help teachers to focus on the intended learning outcomes rather than presentational style. During oral presentations content validity is addressed through having marking criteria that focus on the quality of the points raised in the presentation itself and construct validity is addressed during the question and answer phase when the presenter is assessed for their capacity to comment on underpinning literature, theories and/or principles. One of the issues in having peer questions at the end of an oral presentation is that the teacher has very little control over what will be asked. This does not mean that such questions are not legitimate – only that teachers need to carefully consider how they mark the answers to such questions. In order to ensure equality of opportunity, teachers should ask their own questions after any peer questions, using them to fill any gaps and offer the presenter a chance to address any areas of the marking criteria that have not yet been covered. Oral presentation may challenge students with less proficiency in spoken English, and criteria should be scrutinised to support their achievement.

How to maintain and ensure rigour in oral presentations

Assessment rigour for oral presentations includes the teacher’s capacity to assess a range of presentation topics, formats and styles with an equal level of scrutiny.  Teachers should therefore develop marking criteria that focus on a student’s ability to take complex issues and present them in a clear and relatable manner rather than focus on the content covered. Throughout this whole process teachers should be involved in a form of constant reflexive scrutiny – examining if they feel that they are applying marking criteria fairly across all students. As oral presentations are ephemeral, consider how the moderator and/or external examiner will evaluate the assessment process. Can a moderator ‘double mark’ a percentage of presentations? Is there a need (or would it be helpful) to record the presentations?

How to limit possible misconduct in oral presentations

The opportunities for academic misconduct are quite low in an oral presentation – especially during the question and answer phase. If written resources are expected to be produced as part of the assessment (handouts, bibliographies, PowerPoint slides etc.) then guidance on citing and referencing should be given and marking criteria may offer marks for appropriate use of such literature. In guiding students to avoid using written scripts (except where it is deemed necessary from an inclusivity perspective) teachers will steer them aware from the possibility of reading out someone else’s thoughts as their own. Instead, students should be encouraged to use techniques such as limited cue cards to structure their presentation. The questions posed by the teacher at the end of the presentation are also a possible check on misconduct and will allow the teacher to see if the student actually knows about the content they are presenting or if they have merely memorised someone else’s words.

LSE examples

MA498 Dissertation in Mathematics

PB202 Developmental Psychology

ST312 Applied Statistics Project

Further resources

https://twp.duke.edu/sites/twp.duke.edu/files/file-attachments/oral-presentation-handout.original.pdf

Langan, A.M., Shuker, D.M., Cullen, W.R., Penney, D., Preziosi, R.F. and Wheater, C.P. (2008) Relationships between student characteristics and self‐, peer and tutor evaluations of oral presentations.  Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education , 33(2): 179-190.

Dunbar, N.E., Brooks, C.F. and Kubicka-Miller, T. (2006) Oral communication skills in higher education: Using a performance-based evaluation rubric to assess communication skills.  Innovative Higher Education , 31(2): 115.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRaPmO6TlaM

https://www.lse.ac.uk/resources/calendar/courseGuides/PB/2020_PB202.htm

Implementing this method at LSE

If you’re considering using oral presentations as an assessment,  this resource  offers more specific information, pedagogic and practical, about implementing the method at LSE. This resource is password protected to LSE staff.

Back to Assessment methods

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24 Oral Presentations

Many academic courses require students to present information to their peers and teachers in a classroom setting. This is usually in the form of a short talk, often, but not always, accompanied by visual aids such as a power point. Students often become nervous at the idea of speaking in front of a group.

This chapter is divided under five headings to establish a quick reference guide for oral presentations.

A beginner, who may have little or no experience, should read each section in full.

For the intermediate learner, who has some experience with oral presentations, review the sections you feel you need work on.

The Purpose of an Oral Presentation

Generally, oral presentation is public speaking, either individually or as a group, the aim of which is to provide information, entertain, persuade the audience, or educate. In an academic setting, oral presentations are often assessable tasks with a marking criteria. Therefore, students are being evaluated on their capacity to speak and deliver relevant information within a set timeframe. An oral presentation differs from a speech in that it usually has visual aids and may involve audience interaction; ideas are both shown and explained . A speech, on the other hand, is a formal verbal discourse addressing an audience, without visual aids and audience participation.

Types of Oral Presentations

Individual presentation.

• Breathe and remember that everyone gets nervous when speaking in public. You are in control. You’ve got this!
• Know your content. The number one way to have a smooth presentation is to know what you want to say and how you want to say it. Write it down and rehearse it until you feel relaxed and confident and do not have to rely heavily on notes while speaking.
• Eliminate ‘umms’ and ‘ahhs’ from your oral presentation vocabulary. Speak slowly and clearly and pause when you need to. It is not a contest to see who can race through their presentation the fastest or fit the most content within the time limit. The average person speaks at a rate of 125 words per minute. Therefore, if you are required to speak for 10 minutes, you will need to write and practice 1250 words for speaking. Ensure you time yourself and get it right.
• Ensure you meet the requirements of the marking criteria, including non-verbal communication skills. Make good eye contact with the audience; watch your posture; don’t fidget.
• Know the language requirements. Check if you are permitted to use a more casual, conversational tone and first-person pronouns, or do you need to keep a more formal, academic tone?

Group Presentation

• All of the above applies, however you are working as part of a group. So how should you approach group work?
• Firstly, if you are not assigned to a group by your lecturer/tutor, choose people based on their availability and accessibility. If you cannot meet face-to-face you may schedule online meetings.
• Get to know each other. It’s easier to work with friends than strangers.
• Also consider everyone’s strengths and weaknesses. This will involve a discussion that will often lead to task or role allocations within the group, however, everyone should be carrying an equal level of the workload.
• Some group members may be more focused on getting the script written, with a different section for each team member to say. Others may be more experienced with the presentation software and skilled in editing and refining power point slides so they are appropriate for the presentation. Use one visual aid (one set of power point slides) for the whole group. Take turns presenting information and ideas.
• Be patient and tolerant with each other’s learning style and personality. Do not judge people in your group based on their personal appearance, sexual orientation, gender, age, or cultural background.
• Rehearse as a group, more than once. Keep rehearsing until you have seamless transitions between speakers. Ensure you thank the previous speaker and introduce the one following you. If you are rehearsing online, but have to present in-person, try to schedule some face-to-face time that will allow you to physically practice using the technology and classroom space of the campus.
• For further information on working as a group see:

Working as a group – my.UQ – University of Queensland

Writing Your Presentation

Approach the oral presentation task just as you would any other assignment. Review the available topics, do some background reading and research to ensure you can talk about the topic for the appropriate length of time and in an informed manner. Break the question down as demonstrated in Chapter 17 Breaking Down an Assignment. Where it differs from writing an essay is that the information in the written speech must align with the visual aid. Therefore, with each idea, concept or new information you write, think about how this might be visually displayed through minimal text and the occasional use of images. Proceed to write your ideas in full, but consider that not all information will end up on a power point slide. After all, it is you who are doing the presenting , not the power point. Your presentation skills are being evaluated; this may include a small percentage for the actual visual aid. This is also why it is important that EVERYONE has a turn at speaking during the presentation, as each person receives their own individual grade.

Using Visual Aids

A whole chapter could be written about the visual aids alone, therefore I will simply refer to the key points as noted by my.UQ

To keep your audience engaged and help them to remember what you have to say, you may want to use visual aids, such as slides.

When designing slides for your presentation, make sure:

• any text is brief, grammatically correct and easy to read. Use dot points and space between lines, plus large font size (18-20 point).
• Resist the temptation to use dark slides with a light-coloured font; it is hard on the eyes
• if images and graphs are used to support your main points, they should be non-intrusive on the written work

Images and Graphs

• Your audience will respond better to slides that deliver information quickly – images and graphs are a good way to do this. However, they are not always appropriate or necessary.

When choosing images, it’s important to find images that:

• support your presentation and aren’t just decorative
• are high quality, however, using large HD picture files can make the power point file too large overall for submission via Turnitin
• you have permission to use (Creative Commons license, royalty-free, own images, or purchased)
• suggested sites for free-to-use images: Openclipart – Clipping Culture ; Beautiful Free Images & Pictures | Unsplash ; Pxfuel – Royalty free stock photos free download ; When we share, everyone wins – Creative Commons

This is a general guide. The specific requirements for your course may be different. Make sure you read through any assignment requirements carefully and ask your lecturer or tutor if you’re unsure how to meet them.

Using Visual Aids Effectively

Too often, students make an impressive power point though do not understand how to use it effectively to enhance their presentation.

• Rehearse with the power point.
• Keep the slides synchronized with your presentation; change them at the appropriate time.
• Refer to the information on the slides. Point out details; comment on images; note facts such as data.
• Don’t let the power point just be something happening in the background while you speak.
• Write notes in your script to indicate when to change slides or which slide number the information applies to.
• Pace yourself so you are not spending a disproportionate amount of time on slides at the beginning of the presentation and racing through them at the end.
• Practice, practice, practice.

Nonverbal Communication

It is clear by the name that nonverbal communication are the ways that we communicate without speaking. Many people are already aware of this, however here are a few tips that relate specifically to oral presentations.

Being confident and looking confident are two different things. Fake it until you make it.

• Avoid slouching or leaning – standing up straight instantly gives you an air of confidence.
• Move! When you’re glued to one spot as a presenter, you’re not perceived as either confident or dynamic. Use the available space effectively, though do not exaggerate your natural movements so you look ridiculous.
• If you’re someone who “speaks with their hands”, resist the urge to constantly wave them around. They detract from your message. Occasional gestures are fine.
• Be animated, but don’t fidget. Ask someone to watch you rehearse and identify if you have any nervous, repetitive habits you may be unaware of, for example, constantly touching or ‘finger-combing’ your hair, rubbing your face.
• Avoid ‘voice fidgets’ also. If you needs to cough or clear your throat, do so once then take a drink of water.
• Avoid distractions. No phone turned on. Water available but off to one side.
• Keep your distance. Don’t hover over front-row audience members; this can be intimidating.
• Have a cheerful demeaner. You do not need to grin like a Cheshire cat throughout the presentation, yet your facial expression should be relaxed and welcoming.
• Maintain an engaging TONE in your voice. Sometimes it’s not what you’re saying that is putting your audience to sleep, it’s your monotonous tone. Vary your tone and pace.
• Don’t read your presentation – PRESENT it! Internalize your script so you can speak with confidence and only occasionally refer to your notes if needed.
• Lastly, make good eye contact with your audience members so they know you are talking with them, not at them. You’re having a conversation. Watch the link below for some great speaking tips, including eye contact.

Below is a video of some great tips about public speaking from Amy Wolff at TEDx Portland [1]

• Wolff. A. [The Oregonion]. (2016, April 9). 5 public speaking tips from TEDxPortland speaker coach [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNOXZumCXNM&ab_channel=TheOregonian ↵

communication of thought by word

Academic Writing Skills Copyright © 2021 by Patricia Williamson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Rubric Best Practices, Examples, and Templates

A rubric is a scoring tool that identifies the different criteria relevant to an assignment, assessment, or learning outcome and states the possible levels of achievement in a specific, clear, and objective way. Use rubrics to assess project-based student work including essays, group projects, creative endeavors, and oral presentations.

Rubrics can help instructors communicate expectations to students and assess student work fairly, consistently and efficiently. Rubrics can provide students with informative feedback on their strengths and weaknesses so that they can reflect on their performance and work on areas that need improvement.

How to Get Started

Best practices, moodle how-to guides.

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Step 1: Analyze the assignment

The first step in the rubric creation process is to analyze the assignment or assessment for which you are creating a rubric. To do this, consider the following questions:

• What is the purpose of the assignment and your feedback? What do you want students to demonstrate through the completion of this assignment (i.e. what are the learning objectives measured by it)? Is it a summative assessment, or will students use the feedback to create an improved product?
• Does the assignment break down into different or smaller tasks? Are these tasks equally important as the main assignment?
• What would an “excellent” assignment look like? An “acceptable” assignment? One that still needs major work?
• How detailed do you want the feedback you give students to be? Do you want/need to give them a grade?

Step 2: Decide what kind of rubric you will use

Types of rubrics: holistic, analytic/descriptive, single-point

Holistic Rubric. A holistic rubric includes all the criteria (such as clarity, organization, mechanics, etc.) to be considered together and included in a single evaluation. With a holistic rubric, the rater or grader assigns a single score based on an overall judgment of the student’s work, using descriptions of each performance level to assign the score.

Advantages of holistic rubrics:

• Can p lace an emphasis on what learners can demonstrate rather than what they cannot
• Save grader time by minimizing the number of evaluations to be made for each student
• Can be used consistently across raters, provided they have all been trained

Disadvantages of holistic rubrics:

• Provide less specific feedback than analytic/descriptive rubrics
• Can be difficult to choose a score when a student’s work is at varying levels across the criteria
• Any weighting of c riteria cannot be indicated in the rubric

Analytic/Descriptive Rubric . An analytic or descriptive rubric often takes the form of a table with the criteria listed in the left column and with levels of performance listed across the top row. Each cell contains a description of what the specified criterion looks like at a given level of performance. Each of the criteria is scored individually.

Advantages of analytic rubrics:

• Provide detailed feedback on areas of strength or weakness
• Each criterion can be weighted to reflect its relative importance

Disadvantages of analytic rubrics:

• More time-consuming to create and use than a holistic rubric
• May not be used consistently across raters unless the cells are well defined
• May result in giving less personalized feedback

Single-Point Rubric . A single-point rubric is breaks down the components of an assignment into different criteria, but instead of describing different levels of performance, only the “proficient” level is described. Feedback space is provided for instructors to give individualized comments to help students improve and/or show where they excelled beyond the proficiency descriptors.

Advantages of single-point rubrics:

• Easier to create than an analytic/descriptive rubric
• Perhaps more likely that students will read the descriptors
• Areas of concern and excellence are open-ended
• May removes a focus on the grade/points
• May increase student creativity in project-based assignments

Disadvantage of analytic rubrics: Requires more work for instructors writing feedback

Step 3 (Optional): Look for templates and examples.

You might Google, “Rubric for persuasive essay at the college level” and see if there are any publicly available examples to start from. Ask your colleagues if they have used a rubric for a similar assignment. Some examples are also available at the end of this article. These rubrics can be a great starting point for you, but consider steps 3, 4, and 5 below to ensure that the rubric matches your assignment description, learning objectives and expectations.

Step 4: Define the assignment criteria

Make a list of the knowledge and skills are you measuring with the assignment/assessment Refer to your stated learning objectives, the assignment instructions, past examples of student work, etc. for help.

  Helpful strategies for defining grading criteria:

• Collaborate with co-instructors, teaching assistants, and other colleagues
• Brainstorm and discuss with students
• Can they be observed and measured?
• Are they important and essential?
• Are they distinct from other criteria?
• Are they phrased in precise, unambiguous language?
• Revise the criteria as needed
• Consider whether some are more important than others, and how you will weight them.

Step 5: Design the rating scale

Most ratings scales include between 3 and 5 levels. Consider the following questions when designing your rating scale:

• Given what students are able to demonstrate in this assignment/assessment, what are the possible levels of achievement?
• How many levels would you like to include (more levels means more detailed descriptions)
• Will you use numbers and/or descriptive labels for each level of performance? (for example 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and/or Exceeds expectations, Accomplished, Proficient, Developing, Beginning, etc.)
• Don’t use too many columns, and recognize that some criteria can have more columns that others . The rubric needs to be comprehensible and organized. Pick the right amount of columns so that the criteria flow logically and naturally across levels.

Step 6: Write descriptions for each level of the rating scale

Artificial Intelligence tools like Chat GPT have proven to be useful tools for creating a rubric. You will want to engineer your prompt that you provide the AI assistant to ensure you get what you want. For example, you might provide the assignment description, the criteria you feel are important, and the number of levels of performance you want in your prompt. Use the results as a starting point, and adjust the descriptions as needed.

Building a rubric from scratch

For a single-point rubric , describe what would be considered “proficient,” i.e. B-level work, and provide that description. You might also include suggestions for students outside of the actual rubric about how they might surpass proficient-level work.

For analytic and holistic rubrics , c reate statements of expected performance at each level of the rubric.

• Consider what descriptor is appropriate for each criteria, e.g., presence vs absence, complete vs incomplete, many vs none, major vs minor, consistent vs inconsistent, always vs never. If you have an indicator described in one level, it will need to be described in each level.
• You might start with the top/exemplary level. What does it look like when a student has achieved excellence for each/every criterion? Then, look at the “bottom” level. What does it look like when a student has not achieved the learning goals in any way? Then, complete the in-between levels.
• For an analytic rubric , do this for each particular criterion of the rubric so that every cell in the table is filled. These descriptions help students understand your expectations and their performance in regard to those expectations.

Well-written descriptions:

• Describe observable and measurable behavior
• Use parallel language across the scale
• Indicate the degree to which the standards are met

Step 7: Create your rubric

Create your rubric in a table or spreadsheet in Word, Google Docs, Sheets, etc., and then transfer it by typing it into Moodle. You can also use online tools to create the rubric, but you will still have to type the criteria, indicators, levels, etc., into Moodle. Rubric creators: Rubistar , iRubric

Step 8: Pilot-test your rubric

Prior to implementing your rubric on a live course, obtain feedback from:

• Teacher assistants

Try out your new rubric on a sample of student work. After you pilot-test your rubric, analyze the results to consider its effectiveness and revise accordingly.

• Limit the rubric to a single page for reading and grading ease
• Use parallel language . Use similar language and syntax/wording from column to column. Make sure that the rubric can be easily read from left to right or vice versa.
• Use student-friendly language . Make sure the language is learning-level appropriate. If you use academic language or concepts, you will need to teach those concepts.
• Share and discuss the rubric with your students . Students should understand that the rubric is there to help them learn, reflect, and self-assess. If students use a rubric, they will understand the expectations and their relevance to learning.
• Consider scalability and reusability of rubrics. Create rubric templates that you can alter as needed for multiple assignments.
• Maximize the descriptiveness of your language. Avoid words like “good” and “excellent.” For example, instead of saying, “uses excellent sources,” you might describe what makes a resource excellent so that students will know. You might also consider reducing the reliance on quantity, such as a number of allowable misspelled words. Focus instead, for example, on how distracting any spelling errors are.

Example of an analytic rubric for a final paper

Example of a holistic rubric for a final paper, single-point rubric, more examples:.

• Single Point Rubric Template ( variation )
• Analytic Rubric Template make a copy to edit
• A Rubric for Rubrics
• Bank of Online Discussion Rubrics in different formats
• Mathematical Presentations Descriptive Rubric
• Math Proof Assessment Rubric
• Kansas State Sample Rubrics
• Design Single Point Rubric

Technology Tools: Rubrics in Moodle

• Moodle Docs: Rubrics
• Moodle Docs: Grading Guide (use for single-point rubrics)

Tools with rubrics (other than Moodle)

• Google Assignments
• Turnitin Assignments: Rubric or Grading Form

Other resources

• DePaul University (n.d.). Rubrics .
• Gonzalez, J. (2014). Know your terms: Holistic, Analytic, and Single-Point Rubrics . Cult of Pedagogy.
• Goodrich, H. (1996). Understanding rubrics . Teaching for Authentic Student Performance, 54 (4), 14-17. Retrieved from   
• Miller, A. (2012). Tame the beast: tips for designing and using rubrics.
• Ragupathi, K., Lee, A. (2020). Beyond Fairness and Consistency in Grading: The Role of Rubrics in Higher Education. In: Sanger, C., Gleason, N. (eds) Diversity and Inclusion in Global Higher Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore.

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Department of History

Mark scheme for presentations.

Different students may legitimately approach their presentations in different ways and sometimes particular strength in one area can offset weakness in another. But the following criteria gives you an idea of the areas to think about when preparing and presenting, and what makes for a good presentation.

First Class (marks of 74+)

• Information: detailed, accurate, relevant; key points highlighted;
• Structure: rigorously argued, logical, easy to follow;
• Analysis and Interpretation: extensive evidence of independent thought and critical analysis;
• Use of relevant and accurate Evidence: key points supported with highly relevant and accurate evidence, critically evaluated;
• Presentation Skills: clear, lively, imaginative; good use of visual aids (where appropriate);
• Time Management: perfectly timed, well organised;
• Group Skills: engages well with group; encourages discussion and responds well to questions.

2.1 Upper Second (62-68)

• Information: detailed, accurate, relevant;
• Structure: generally clearly argued and logical;
• Analysis and Interpretation: attempts to go beyond the ideas presented in secondary literature;
• Use of relevant and accurate Evidence: most points illustrated with relevant and accurate evidence;
• Presentation Skills: generally clear, lively; use of appropriate visual aids;
• Time Management : well organised, more or less to time;
• Group Skills: attempts to engage with group and responds reasonably well to questions.

2.2 Lower Second (52-58)

• Information: generally accurate and relevant, but perhaps some gaps and/or irrelevant material;
• Structure: not always clear or logical; may be overly influenced by secondary literature rather than the requirements of the topic;
• Analysis and Interpretation: little attempt to go beyond or criticise secondary literature;
• Use of relevant and accurate Evidence: some illustrative material, but not critically evaluated and/or some inaccuracies and irrelevancies;
• Presentation Skills: c onveys meaning, but sometimes unclear or clumsy;
• T ime Management: more or less right length, but some material not covered properly as a result, OR, significantly over-runs;
• Group Skills: responds reasonably well to questions, but makes no real attempt to engage with group or promote discussion

Third (42-48)

• Information: limited knowledge, with some significant gaps and/or errors;
• Structure: argument underdeveloped and not entirely clear;
• Analysis and Interpretation : fairly superficial and generally derivative and uncritical;
• Use of relevant and accurate Evidence : some mentioned, but not integrated into presentation or evaluated; the evidence used may not be relevant or accurate
• Presentation Skills: not always clear or easy to follow; unimaginative and unengaging;
• Time Management : significantly over time; material fairly disorganised and rushed;
• Group Skills: uncomfortable responding to questions; no attempt at engaging with group.

Fail (0-40)

• Information: very limited, with many errors and gaps;
• Structure: muddled, incoherent;
• Analysis and Interpretation: entirely derivative, generally superficial;
• Use of relevant and accurate Evidence: little or no evidence discussed; or irrelevant and inaccurate.
• Presentation Skills: clumsy, disjointed, difficult to follow, dull;
• Time Management : significantly under or over time; has clearly not tried out
• material beforehand; disorganised;
• Group Skills : poor.

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Chapter 3: Oral Presentations

Patricia Williamson

Many academic courses require students to present information to their peers and teachers in a classroom setting. Such presentations are usually in the form of a short talk, often, but not always, accompanied by visual aids such as a PowerPoint. Yet, students often become nervous at the idea of speaking in front of a group. This chapter aims to help calms those nerves.

This chapter is divided under five headings to establish a quick reference guide for oral presentations.

• A beginner, who may have little or no experience, should read each section in full.
• For the intermediate learner, who has some experience with oral presentations, review the sections you feel you need work on.
• If you are an experienced presenter then you may wish to jog your memory about the basics or gain some fresh insights about technique.

The Purpose of an Oral Presentation

Generally, oral presentation is public speaking, either individually or as a group, the aim of which is to provide information, to entertain, to persuade the audience, or to educate. In an academic setting, oral presentations are often assessable tasks with a marking criteria. Therefore, students are being evaluated on two separate-but-related competencies within a set timeframe: the ability to speak and the quality of the spoken content. An oral presentation differs from a speech in that it usually has visual aids and may involve audience interaction; ideas are both shown and explained . A speech, on the other hand, is a formal verbal discourse addressing an audience, without visual aids and audience participation.

Tips for Types of Oral Presentations

Individual presentation.

• Know your content. The number one way to have a smooth presentation is to know what you want to say and how you want to say it. Write it down and rehearse it until you feel relaxed and confident and do not have to rely heavily on notes while speaking.
• Eliminate ‘umms’ and ‘ahhs’ from your oral presentation vocabulary. Speak slowly and clearly and pause when you need to. It is not a contest to see who can race through their presentation the fastest or fit the most content within the time limit. The average person speaks at a rate of 125 words per minute. Therefore, if you are required to speak for 10 minutes, you will need to write and practice 1250 words for speaking. Ensure you time yourself and get it right.
• Ensure you meet the requirements of the marking criteria, including non-verbal communication skills. Make good eye contact with the audience; watch your posture; don’t fidget.
• Know the language requirements. Check if you are permitted to use a more casual, conversational tone and first-person pronouns, or do you need to keep a more formal, academic tone?
• Breathe. You are in control. You’ve got this!

Group Presentation

• All of the above applies; however, you are working as part of a group. So how should you approach group work?
• Firstly, if you are not assigned to a group by your lecturer/tutor, choose people based on their availability and accessibility. If you cannot meet face-to-face you may schedule online meetings.
• Get to know each other. It’s easier to work with friends than strangers.
• Consider everyone’s strengths and weaknesses. Determining strengths and weaknesses will involve a discussion that will often lead to task or role allocations within the group; however, everyone should be carrying an equal level of the workload.
• Some group members may be more focused on getting the script written, with a different section for each team member to say. Others may be more experienced with the presentation software and skilled in editing and refining PowerPoint slides so they are appropriate for the presentation. Use one visual aid (one set of PowerPoint slides) for the whole group; you may consider using a shared cloud drive so that there is no need to integrate slides later on.
• Be patient and tolerant with each other’s learning style and personality. Do not judge people in your group based on their personal appearance, sexual orientation, gender, age, or cultural background.
• Rehearse as a group–more than once. Keep rehearsing until you have seamless transitions between speakers. Ensure you thank the previous speaker and introduce the one following you. If you are rehearsing online, but have to present in-person, try to schedule some face-to-face time that will allow you to physically practice using the technology and classroom space of the campus.

Writing Your Presentation

Approach the oral presentation task just as you would any other assignment. Review the available topics and then do some background reading and research to ensure you can talk about the topic for the appropriate length of time and in an informed manner. Break the question down into manageable parts .

Creating a presentation differs from writing an essay in that the information in the speech must align with the visual aid. Therefore, with each idea, concept, or new information that you write, you need to think about how this might be visually displayed through minimal text and the occasional use of images. Proceed to write your ideas in full, but consider that not all information will end up on a PowerPoint slide. Many guides, such as Marsen (2020), will suggest no more than five points per slide, with each bullet point have no more than six words (for a maximum of 30 words per slide). After all, it is you who are doing the presenting , not the PowerPoint. Your presentation skills are being evaluated, but this evaluation may include only a small percentage for the actual visual aid: check your assessment guidelines.

Using Visual Aids

To keep your audience engaged and help them to remember what you have to say, you may want to use visual aids, such as slides.

When designing slides for your presentation, make sure:

• any text is brief, grammatically correct and easy to read. Use dot points and space between lines, plus large font size (18-20 point)
• Resist the temptation to use dark slides with a light-coloured font; it is hard on the eyes
• if images and graphs are used to support your main points, they should be non-intrusive on the written work

Images and Graphs

• Your audience will respond better to slides that deliver information quickly – images and graphs are a good way to do this. However, they are not always appropriate or necessary.

When choosing images, it’s important to find images that:

• support your presentation and aren’t just decorative
• are high quality, however, using large HD picture files can make the PowerPoint file too large overall for submission via Turnitin
• you have permission to use (Creative Commons license, royalty-free, own images, or purchased)
• suggested sites for free-to-use images: Openclipart – Clipping Culture ; Beautiful Free Images & Pictures | Unsplash ; Pxfuel – Royalty free stock photos free download ; When we share, everyone wins – Creative Commons

The specific requirements for your papers may differ. Again, ensure that you read through any assignment requirements carefully and ask your lecturer or tutor if you’re unsure how to meet them.

Using Visual Aids Effectively

Too often, students make an impressive PowerPoint though do not understand how to use it effectively to enhance their presentation.

• Rehearse with the PowerPoint.
• Keep the slides synchronized with your presentation; change them at the appropriate time.
• Refer to the information on the slides. Point out details; comment on images; note facts such as data.
• Don’t let the PowerPoint just be something happening in the background while you speak.
• Write notes in your script to indicate when to change slides or which slide number the information applies to.
• Pace yourself so you are not spending a disproportionate amount of time on slides at the beginning of the presentation and racing through them at the end.
• Practice, practice, practice.

Nonverbal Communication

It is clear by the name that nonverbal communication includes the ways that we communicate without speaking. You use nonverbal communication everyday–often without thinking about it. Consider meeting a friend on the street: you may say “hello”, but you may also smile, wave, offer your hand to shake, and the like. Here are a few tips that relate specifically to oral presentations.

Being confident and looking confident are two different things. Even if you may be nervous (which is natural), the following will help you look confident and professional:

• Avoid slouching or leaning – standing up straight instantly gives you an air of confidence, but more importantly it allows you to breathe freely. Remember that breathing well allows you to project your voice, but it also prevents your body from experiencing extra stress.
• If you have the space, move when appropriate. You can, for example, move to gesture to a more distant visual aid or to get closer to different part of the audience who might be answering a question.
• If you’re someone who “speaks with their hands”, resist the urge to gesticulate constantly. Use gestures purposefully to highlight, illustrate, motion, or the like.
• Be animated, but don’t fidget. Ask someone to watch you rehearse and identify if you have any nervous, repetitive habits you may be unaware of, such as ‘finger-combing’ your hair or touching your face.
• Avoid ‘verbal fidgets’ such as “umm” or “ahh”; silence is ok. If you needs to cough or clear your throat, do so once then take a drink of water.
• Avoid distractions that you can control. Put your phone on “do not disturb” or turn it off completely.
• Keep your distance. Don’t hover over front-row audience members.
• Have a cheerful demeaner. Remember that your audience will mirror your demeanor.
• Maintain an engaging tone in your voice, by varying tone, pace, and emphasis. Match emotion to concept; slow when concepts might be difficult; stress important words.
• Don’t read your presentation–present it! Internalize your script so you can speak with confidence and only occasionally refer to your notes if needed.
• Make eye contact with your audience members so they know you are talking with them, not at them. You’re having a conversation. Watch the link below for some great speaking tips, including eye contact.

Below is a video of some great tips about public speaking from Amy Wolff at TEDx Portland [1]

• Wolff. A. [The Oregonion]. (2016, April 9). 5 public speaking tips from TEDxPortland speaker coach [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNOXZumCXNM&ab_channel=TheOregonian ↵

Two or more people tied by marriage, blood, adoption, or choice; living together or apart by choice or circumstance; having interaction within family roles; creating and maintaining a common culture; being characterized by economic cooperation; deciding to have or not to have children, either own or adopted; having boundaries; and claiming mutual affection.

Chapter 3: Oral Presentations Copyright © 2023 by Patricia Williamson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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ESL Presentation Rubric

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In-class presentations are a great way to encourage a number of English communicative skills in a realistic task that provides students not only help with their English skills but prepares them in a broader way for future education and work situations. Grading these presentations can be tricky, as there are many elements such as key presentation phrases beyond simple grammar and structure, pronunciation and so on that make a good presentation. This ESL presentation rubric can help you provide valuable feedback to your students and has been created with English learners in mind. Skills included in this rubric include  stress and intonation , appropriate linking language, body language , fluency, as well as standard grammar structures.

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• v.5(2); 2016 Apr

Evaluation of marking of peer marking in oral presentation

Dietmar steverding.

Norwich Medical School, University of East Anglia, Norwich Research Park, Norwich, UK

Kevin M. Tyler

Darren w. sexton.

Norwich Medical School, currently: School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, UK

Peer marking is an important skill for students, helping them to understand the process of learning and assessment. This method is increasingly used in medical education, particularly in formative assessment. However, the use of peer marking in summative assessment is not widely adopted because many teachers are concerned about biased marking by students of their peers.

The aim of this study was to investigate whether marking of summative peer assessment can improve the reliability of peer marking.

In a retrospective analysis, the peer-marking results of a summative assessment of oral presentations of two cohorts of students were compared. One group of students was told that their peer marks would be assessed against a benchmark consisting of the average of examiner marks and that these scores together with the peer and examiner marks would form their final exam results. The other group of students were just informed that their final exam results would be determined based on the examiner and peer marks.

Based on examiner marks, both groups of students performed similarly in their summative assessment, agreement between student markers was less consistent and more polar than the examiners. When compared with the examiners, students who were told that their peer marking would be scored were more generous markers (their average peer mark was 2.4 % points higher than the average examiner mark) while students who were not being scored on their marking were rather harsh markers (their average peer mark was 4.2 % points lower than the average examiner mark), with scoring of the top-performing students most affected.

Conclusions

Marking of peer marking had a small effect on the marking conduct of students in summative assessment of oral presentation but possibly indicated a more balanced marking performance.

• Students whose peer marking is assessed mark more generously in summative assessments of oral presentations.
• The effect is greatest for top-performing students who tend to be marked more harshly in summative assessment of oral presentations when peer marking is not subjected to evaluation.
• There is a significant but marginal inflationary effect from assessor moderation of peer marking by students in summative assessments of oral presentations.

Introduction

Peer assessment is increasingly used in higher medical education as it is an effective method to improve self-directed learning and reflection [ 1 – 3 ]. It usually involves the assessment and evaluation of the work of a fellow student followed by comparison of the work with predefined standards which then allows to identify gaps in knowledge. This method works very well in formative assessments designed to improve students’ independent and reflective learning and to engage students actively in the learning process and in the development of communication, teamwork and presentation skills [ 4 ]. In addition, most students are willing to participate in peer assessment and enjoy the process [ 5 ].

However, peer marking is less used in summative assessment. This is probably because summative assessment is characterized as evaluation of learning at the end of an instructional unit [ 6 ]. As the stakes are often high, teachers have understandable reservations with inclusion of peer marking in summative assessments. In addition, teachers may fear that students would mark their peers too leniently, thus falsely inflating examination grades. But it may also be possible that students may mark their peers more strictly and relative polarity in student peer reviewing has been previously observed [ 7 ]. To prevent unfair peer marking, the marks given by the students could be assessed against a benchmark set by the teachers’ marks and included in their final score.

It is obvious that peer marking is not practical for all summative assessments, e.g. written exams. However, there are many other forms of summative assessments in the modern medical curriculum [ 8 ], some of which may prove useful. Here we describe the retrospective analysis of peer marking of summative assessments of a teaching unit on presentation skills. In this study two groups of students were compared: the peer marks of the first group were graded and the students were informed about this while the peer marks of the second group remained ungraded. The results show that peer marking in certain summative assessments is feasible and that students generally assess their peers in an unbiased fashion.

Study design

This pilot study retrospectively analyzed the results of summative assessments of the ‘Research Presentation’ part of the postgraduate module ‘Transferable Skills for Research’ taught for medical health professionals at the University of East Anglia. The Research Presentation part consisted of several sessions teaching students about the different methods of presenting research results. At the end of the module the students were assessed on a 10-minute oral presentation accompanied by a PowerPoint slide show. The presentation was marked in two categories: visual aids and presentation skills. The individual marking criteria for the visual aids category included ‘font size’, ‘font style’, ‘amount of text’, ‘figures/tables’, ‘background of slides’, ‘use of colours’ and ‘use of animation’ while those for the presentation skills comprised ‘background information’, ‘presentation of results’, ‘conclusion’, ‘timing’, ‘time per slide’, ‘gestures’ and ‘contact with audience’. The marks for each criterion were: 0 = unacceptable, 1 = unsatisfactory, 2 = satisfactory, 3 = good, 4 = excellent. The presentations were simultaneously marked by two members of staff (examiner marks) and by the students (peer marks) taking the module. The examination results of two cohorts of students from two different years were analyzed. The students of one year (group M) were informed that their peer marks would be scored against the mean examiner marks as benchmark. The students were also briefed that the weighting of their final marks for their presentation would consist of 60 % examiner marks, 25 % peer marks and 15 % marks for peer marking. The students of another year (group U) were just informed that they would carry out peer marking and that the peer marks would be included in their final mark for their presentation at a weighting of 75 % examiner marks and 25 % peer marks. The cohorts of the two years were chosen because both cohorts consisted of nine students. Statistical analyses were performed to see whether the marking of the peer marks influenced the scoring attitude of students by comparing the peer-marking results of the cohorts with each other and with the examiner marks.

This study was approved by the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences Research Ethics Committee of the University of East Anglia (reference: 20142015 69 SE).

In order to be able to determine whether scoring of peer marks would affect the peer marking of students, an essential prerequisite was that the two student groups U and M were matchable with respect to their exam performance. Both groups were similarly marked by the examiners indicating that their exam performances were comparable (Fig.  1 ). The mean examiner marks were 77.4 ± 10.6 % (95 % CI 72.4–82.4 %) for the group U students and 76.3 ± 7.3 % (95 % CI 71.4–81.2 %) for the group M students. The observed difference of 1.1 percentage points between the mean examiner marks of the two groups was statistically insignificant ( p  = 0.263; Student’s t-test). Compared with the respective mean examiner marks, the mean peer marks of the group U students (73.2 ± 10.7; 95 % CI 70.7–75.8 %) was 4.2 % points lower, while the mean peer marks of the group M students (78.7 ± 11.1 %; 95 % CI 72.2–81.2 %) was 2.4 % points higher (Fig.  1 ). These differences, however, were statistically not significant (group U, p  = 0.14; group M, p  = 0.38; Student’s t-test). Another observable difference was that the min/max range for the student groups was much bigger than that for the examiners (Fig.  1 ). In addition, when the mean peer marks of group U and M were compared with each other, the observed difference between the marks was highly significant ( p  = 0.0035; Student’s t-test).

Box-and-whisker plot of examiner and peer marks for group U (peer marks were ungraded) and group M (peer marks were graded). The plot shows the median (inside bar), the mean (cross), the first and the third quartiles (bottom and top of the box), and the minimum and maximum (end of whiskers)

Next, peer and examiner marks were analyzed with a Bland-Altman plot [ 9 ]. This method plots the differences between two measures against the average of the two measures and determines whether there is any systematic bias (i.e., in our case whether there is a tendency for the student marking to be lower or higher than the examiner marking). The Bland-Altman analysis showed that the peer and examiner marks of both groups spread differently (Fig.  2 ). The different mean marks in groups U and M were − 4.03 ± 4.71 (95 % CI − 7.01 to − 1.06) and + 2.36 ± 3.64 (95 % CI − 0.62–5.33) percentage points, respectively. The discrepancy in these mean marks was statistically significant ( p  = 0.005; Student’s t-test).

Bland-Altman plot of peer minus examiner marks against mean of peer and examiner marks for group U students ( dark grey ) and group M students ( light grey ). Solid lines, means; dashed lines, means ± SD

Linear regression analysis showed that there was generally a good correlation between the peer and examiner marks (> 0.85; Fig.  3 ). However, the regression line of both groups deviated from the line of equality (Fig.  3 ). In the case of the group U students the deviation indicates that they marked their better peers more harshly than the examiners. For group M students there was a trend that they marked their weaker peers more kindly than the examiners.

Scatterplot of examiner and student marks for group U students ( dark grey ) and group M students ( light grey ). Dotted line, line of equality (if there were total agreement between marks); solid lines, regression line. Regression function and correlation coefficient for the mark of both groups are shown

This retrospective pilot study has shown that peer marking is feasible in summative assessments. An attempt was made to improve the reliability of peer marking by introducing marks for the peer-marking quality. Interestingly, our study indicates that students whose peer marking was not assessed (group U) were more likely to mark their peers harshly than those students who were told that their peer marking would be assessed (group M) and a mark for the quality of their peer marking would be included in their final score. This was somewhat unexpected as we had assumed that group U students would mark their peers more generously than group M students. This is because students can be influenced by concerns over recognizing the work of peers and subsequently award biased higher scores. This phenomenon is known as ‘friendly marking’ [ 10 ]. This was recently shown in a study evaluating the peer marking of laboratory reports of first-year undergraduates, where peer-awarded marks exceeded staff marks by an average of 2.5–3.0 percentage points [ 11 ]. However, the contrary that students mark harsher than examiners has also been reported [ 2 ]. The problem of ‘friendly marking’ may be overcome by anonymizing the work to be marked. However, this was not possible in our study as oral presentations were assessed.

Given that there was reasonable reliability between examiner and peer marks of both student groups, the introduction of assessing peer marks actually affected the marking attitude of students only marginally. Only group U students who performed very well in the exam were affected in the way that they were marked down by their peers. As the weighting of peer marks was 25 % for group U students, these top students lost an average of 1.9–2.9 percentage points on their final exam result which would not have impacted on their overall final grade. However, by reducing the weighting of peer marks, the impact on final exam results can be limited. In a recent study 70 % of students agreed that peer assessment would be acceptable if it contributes only a little (up to 5 %) to the overall final mark [ 11 ].

Previous studies have shown that students find it challenging to mark their peers and express concerns about their peers’ lack of expertise which might result in lost marks [ 2 , 12 ]. It was suggested early on that the process of peer marking requires training of students in specialized skills of summarizing and evaluation [ 13 ]. In our study, the students were taught beforehand about what to consider for a good presentation. Emphasis was placed on visual aids, presentation skills and the assessing criteria for their summatively assessed presentation. In addition, before the students gave their presentations, a formative assessment of a related presentation with verbal feedback was carried out. Although the students did not see the marking sheet until the examination day, it seemed that the students did not have any problems with it as no clarifying questions regarding the marking sheet were asked. Our students may also have been quite confident about peer marking as they were postgraduates who may have experienced some kind of peer marking previously during their undergraduate studies.

It has been reported that students find peer marking generally positive, especially in formative assessments [ 2 , 11 , 14 ]. The students commented that peer marking helped them in increasing their understanding of the subject matter and of the examination techniques required [ 2 , 11 ]. Whether our students regarded the peer-assessment process positively remains unanswered because no questioning of the students was ever intended as this was a retrospective analysis. For future studies it would be interesting if students were to also provide narrative reports to justify their scores. This would make them think about why they have awarded a certain score and thus help them to understand the evaluation process. Indeed, it may further modify their scores if justifications were required.

One limitation of our study is the very small sample size. Although the results were statistically significant, given that the observed effect was small, it is quite possible that the findings were just a result of selection bias, i.e. the findings represented just the differences between the two study groups rather than the effect of marking of peer marking. However, as this was not a predesigned study and therefore the students did not know that their peer assessment would ever be evaluated, the obtained findings may be robust. In a prospective study, the knowledge that their peer marking will be evaluated might have introduced bias in the student marking (Hawthorne effect).

When trying to successfully implement peer marking in educational settings some general practical recommendations should be followed [ 15 ]. Students’ prior experience with peer assessment must be considered. For example, first-year students are less likely to have experienced peer marking compared with postgraduates. The students should be informed before the start of the course that peer marking is part of the assessment process. This can be highlighted in the course’s description and/or explained during the first session. Formative assessments should be incorporated to familiarize students with the assessment process and performance criteria. Peer marking should be performed in an anonymized way. Concerns regarding bias and unfair marking should be discussed and measures to prevent this should be provided. For example that peer marks are assessed as outlined in this study and that peer marking contributes only part of the final mark.

This pilot retrospective study has shown that marking of summative peer assessment only has a small effect on marking performance. In particular, top students benefited from the introduction of assessment of peer marking. One conclusion from this study is that further investigations are required to confirm this retrospective study, which has the possibility of small sample size error.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the dedication, conscientiousness and professionalism of the students who were enrolled on the postgraduate module ‘Transferable Skills for Research’ and whose academic endeavours formed the basis of the present study.

Biographies

is senior lecturer in biochemistry and genetics in the Norwich Medical School at the University of East Anglia. Among other things, he is the organizer of the postgraduate training module ‘Transferable Skills for Research’ and teaches the ‘Research Presentation’ part of this module.

is senior lecturer in eukaryotic microbiology in the Norwich Medical School at the University of East Anglia. Among other things, he is course director of the intercalated MRes degree in clinical science and examiner of the ‘Research Presentation’ part of the postgraduate training module ‘Transferable Skills for Research’.

now senior lecturer in immunology at Liverpool John Moores University, was formerly lecturer in immunology in the Norwich Medical School at the University of East Anglia. Among other things, he was teaching the ‘Research Funding’ part and was examiner of the postgraduate training module ‘Transferable Skills for Research’.