Comparing the Effect of EDPA and FDPA on University Students Examination Results - Case Study Example

Comparing the effect of EDPA and FDPA on Examination Results It has been long accepted that are themselves great resources when it comes to developing questions and activity guidelines. The present study utilizes a strategic understanding of how students can be encouraged to perform better in preparations for exams, by allowing them to frame their own subject wise questions. The application of drill and practice tools like Peerwise and StudySieve focus on different batches of University students has revealed performance results that show us how to better performance in examinations. In our study, every student is required to use either one of the software mentioned above and the number of students using the FDPA version of the software and the number of students using the EDPA version of the software were determined. Their preparations were interspersed with mock tests and assignments, the final of which was conducted at the University Exams. Results showed that those students who were given the EDPA protocol scored better than those given the FDPA protocol of practice. There is a clear indication of better subject engagement in students who practiced using the EDPA application since they were allowed to edit and create the questions to which answers were to be written. In a conclusion that suggests that students understand subjects better when they are responsible of questioning it, we also learn about the importance of different aspects of interactive and focussed practice sessions. Introduction When a child begins to learn about things around him, we ensure that his cognitive skills are well developed and he is able to relate the right words to the right objects or human beings around him. From family to friends, from regularly used objects to names of animals and things that they do not come across in daily life, children are taught to recognise every new thing around them and are taught how to relate to them in the right way. The story takes a turn when the same children grow up to be young adults. While their endeavour to relate to things and subjects continues and their thirst to know more grows, the exercises and study protocols somehow are not as interactive as they were in childhood. While we expect children to mature with age, we forget that their learning abilities while maturing with age also demand more interaction in studies. We saw a small glimpse of how children respond to interactive education through audio-visual training (Denny, 2013, 770). But the latest approach of using Drill and Practice Applications is a step forward to the concept of interactive learning, since it makes the students teach and prepare themselves. There are several ongoing efforts to find and develop tools which help university students improve their learning and get better grades. Drill and practice application (DPA) like Peerwise and StudySieve have shown positive results on university students. The systems allow students to develop drill items and review other students’ work. Items in Peerwise and StudySieve are mostly developed by the students. Are drill and practice items developed by the students better for students’ learning than items prepared for the students? Purpose of Study The purpose of this study was to determine which is the best learning tool between EDPA and FDPA in helping students get better results for their final examinations. The research question focused upon was: Is there a significant difference on final examination scores between group of students using EDPA and FDPA? Literature Review Improving Knowledge Retention and Skills Through Drills Starting from physical exercises to professionally important skills, drills are known to be effective in promoting knowledge retention and skills. Careful studies have shown that when students were not subjected to continuous lectures and were stopped in between classes and asked to note their questions, they came up with new perspectives to the subject and also performed better in exams (Chin, 2001, 88). Different teachers have been using this technique in different ways (Luik, 2007, 60), and achieving the same result. This is actually an extension of the basic teaching principle which asks teachers to encourage doubts and questions from students after every new concept is introduced into the class. This works for any subject be it mathematics, physics (Bates et al, 2012, 123), microbiology (Nicholls & Merkel, 1996, 359) or economics. Learning through questioning The act of questioning lays the foundation to learning. Great scientists and thinkers have used questioning to develop their thoughts and discoveries (Boud, 1995, 32). When this is encouraged amongst university students, their learning becomes an active process. There is no doubt that students learn better through questioning. This makes students change from passive to active learners, and enable them to reason out questions which they would have found hard to answer otherwise. (Chin, 2001, 91) Self-assessment Self-assessment is important in promoting self-regulation to improve learning. This has been shown in the works of Alfke (1974) and Jelly (1985), who showed that while getting them to question was easy (Alfke, 1974, 19), watching them start self analysing the answers they received was a rare occurrence (Jelly, 1985, 49). To bring them to the self-assessment mode, one needs to actively engage them in assessing answers received to their questions. In separate studies by Barak and Rafaeli (2003), we see that peer assessment becomes an interesting process for such students, which leads to self-assessment and improved learning. (Barak & Rafaeli, 2004, 88) Integrating with Computing Technology Computers can provide instantaneous feedback that can lessen the trouble for students flipping between the question and answer pages of a book. Computer drill and practice applications thus should be more useful than the conventional pen and paper drill and practice activities (Yu, 2009, 1134). Also, online discussions regarding the quality or difficulty level of the question, when fed in by peers who answer the questions, is effective in bringing about a growth of understanding in the subjects that the question papers dealt with. There are a lot of drill and practice applications in the market both for free and commercial. A lot of DPAs seem not to be effective but some have shown good prospects with systems like PeerWise. Students have enjoyed the use of PeerWise and have developed better understanding of their subjects through it. (Denny, Hamer & Luxton-Reilly, 2005, 76) Design of the Study With the growing need to upgrade university education and assessment protocols to suite the speed and habits of Gen Y, we endeavour a complete experiment that compares the performance of university students in examinations after Drill and Practice Applications are provided to them. The EDPA versions allow the students to edit the questions while the FDPA versions had fixed questions that were pre-set by the teachers. The data was collected from the students’ performances in these assessments and the final exams of the University. The stability of a thorough quantitative approach is relied upon in reaching the deductions shared at the end of this study. Sample of study The sample consisted of 151 students from two classes of the Cognitive Sciences and Ethics course which were taught by the same lecturer in Universiti Utara Malaysia. The students were from different semesters ranging from semester two to semester eight and enrolled in various programs like Business Studies and Computing. They were required to participate for the entire duration of the semester from September 2013 to December 2013. Materials Students were given either one of the two versions of KAJI – an offline computer drill and practice application (DPA) using free-type responses built by the researcher. The first version is the Editable DPA (EDPA) while the second version is Fixed DPA (FDPA). The main differences of EDPA and FDPA are the ability to edit items and the availability of pre-inserted items for drill and practice. EDPA has the ability to add and edit items through its own Question Manager (Figure 1). EDPA has no pre-inserted items. Figure 1 KAJI’s Question Manager available only for the EDPA version FDPA has no Question Manager to add or edit items but it has pre-inserted items for drill. This means that students treated with EDPA will need to generate items for their drills whereas FDPA students only need to drill on items that are already available in the application. A screenshot of a drill session is shown in Figure 2. Figure 2 A drill session in KAJI There are two main reasons as to why the author used personally developed application. Firstly, it was important to minimize extraneous variables that could affect results of study due to different applications. Secondly, applications can be easily maintained and modified. The author has to opt for offline drills because students do not have a stable Internet connection in their rooms. In addition, KAJI can be easily run and items can be backed up using a pen drive on a different computer altogether. Experimental Procedure and Data collection Students were given KAJI and were briefed by their lecturer on how to use it during the first week of the semester. Class A was given EDPA while Class B was given FDPA. EDPA students were required to ensure that most of the important facts for each topic are covered through their items. Students were required to submit a report every week to prove that they have used KAJI at least twice a week. The report contained information about the items’ details including how many times and when last an item was attempted. The data collection process ended once the students’ final reports and the final examination scores were collected from the lecturer. Data analysis Two groups of students from the same course were treated with two different version of DPAs. The treatment effect was tested using the students’ examination scores. In other words, this experiment involved a set of scores that were collected from two different groups of participants coming from the same population. Therefore, the independent-groups t-test was chosen as the preferred method for data analysis to compare the differences of final examination scores in FDPA and EDPA conditions. Results and Discussions The results (Table 1) showed that there was a significant difference in the examination scores for FDPA (M = 54.89, SD = 5.68) and EDPA (M = 54.89, SD = 5.68) conditions; t (149) = -2.15, p < .05. This means that students who studied using EDPA had better scores in their final examination compared to students who used FDPA. Table 1 T-test Results for Comparing the Effect of EDPA and FDPA on Students’ Examination Scores Type of DPA N Mean SD T df Sig. FDPA 76 54.89 5.68 -2.15 149 .033* EDPA 75 56.92 5.87 *p < .05 Conclusions AND RECOMMENDATIONS Regardless of how hard the question paper was in the final examination, students who had used EDPA scored better than students who had used FDPA. This brings to fore a very significant factor in active learning protocols used in schools and colleges till date. Students love to innovate and improvise upon what is provided to them and when they do so, they are more inclined to understanding the subject better and helping each other understand it in a better fashion. With mutual help and better interaction, not just individual students (Zohar & Dori, 2002, 156), but the entire group who attend to the sessions, benefit from the discussions and the whole class performs well (Williams, 1992, 52). The performance indicates that FDPA protocols are redundant to the print Question Answer exercises, although the level of engagement is higher. Therefore, EDPA is a suitable form of drill and practice applications for the future which can be suggested to universities and colleges, and emulated with application software like PeerWise (Denny, 2010, 422) and StudySieve. After this study, it is also safe to say that the software KAJI can be utilised in more colleges and for school-level and tuition based mass level applications. References: Alfke, D. (1974). Asking operational questions. Science and Children, 7/(7),pp. 18-19. Jelly, S. (1985). Helping children raise questions — and answering them. In W. Harlen (Ed.), Primary science: Taking the plunge (pp. 47-57). London: Heinemann. Chin, C. (2001). Learning in Science: What do Students’ Questions Tell Us About Their Thinking, Education Journal, The Chinese University of HongKong, 29(2), pp. 85-103. Williams, E. (1992). Student attitudes towards approaches to learning and assessment. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 17(1), pp. 45–58. Barak, M., & Rafaeli, S. (2004). On-line question-posing and peer-assessment as means for web-based knowledge sharing in learning, International Journal of Human Computer Studies, 61, pp. 84-103. Denny, P. Luxton-Reilly, A., & Hamer, J. (2005) The PeerWise system of student contributed assessment questions. In ACE’08: Proceedings of the tenth conference on Australasian computing education. Australian Computer Society, Inc. D, Boud. (1995). Enhancing learning through self assessment. Kogan Page, London; Philadelphia, Zohar, A., & Dori, Y.J. (2002). Higher order thinking skills and low achieving students: are they mutually exclusive? The Journal of the Learning Sciences 12 (2), pp. 145–182. Luik, P. (2007). Characteristics of drills related to development of Skills. The Author. Journal Compilation, Blackwell Publishing Limited. Pp. 56-68 Nicholls, C. & Merkel, S. (1996) The effect of computer animation on students’ understanding of microbiology. Journal of Research on Computing in Education 28, pp. 359–371. Denny, P., Hanks, B., & Simon, B. (2010). Peerwise: replication study of a student-collaborative self-testing web service in a us setting. In Proceedings of the 41st ACM technical symposium on Computer science education, ACM, pp. 421-425. Denny, P. (2013). The effect of virtual achievements on student engagement. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM, pp. 763-772 Yu, F. Y. (2009). Scaffolding student-generated questions: Design and development of a customizable online learning system. Computers in Human Behavior, 25(5), 1129-1138. Bates, S. P., Galloway, R. K., McBride, K. L., Rebello, N. S., Engelhardt, P. V., & Singh, C. (2012). Student-generated content: Using PeerWise to enhance engagement and outcomes in introductory physics courses. In AIP Conference Proceedings-American Institute of Physics (Vol. 1413, No. 1, p. 123). Read More