Equality is one of the most critical ethical principles in teaching. And one evaluation mechanism has been considered the most objective for the last fifty years: multiple-choice exams. Actually, they are extensively used in exams to become civil servant and similar administrative processes where equality is a legal requirement. But, despite this social agreement, students typically are afraid of this evaluation mechanism and claim it is not a fair approach. On the other hand, multi-choice exams in engineering courses have a very special format: the exam just includes a collection of different numerical values as options, where the students must choose the option closest to the numerical results he obtained. On the other hand, several professors also noted this approach influences negatively the students results, so for many years its use was negligible. In order to scientifically analyze how the exam format affects the students’ results, a pilot experience was planned and carried out in Universidad Politécnica de Madrid during the 2022/23 academic year. All students attended to the same learning activities and followed the same teaching methodology. But, for the final evaluation, two different groups were organized. One group (control group) did a short-answer type exam. On the other hand, a second group (pilot group) received the exact same exam but prepared according to a multi-choice format. Results confirmed students’ informal observations. Statistical tests proved a significant difference between academic results in the pilot and control groups, being results in the pilot groups worse than in the control group. Effects such as the Pygmalion effect may explain this difference.
Equality is one of the most critical ethical principles in teaching. And one evaluation mechanism has been considered the most objective for the last fifty years: multiple-choice exams. Actually, they are extensively used in exams to become civil servant and similar administrative processes where equality is a legal requirement. But, despite this social agreement, students typically are afraid of this evaluation mechanism and claim it is not a fair approach. On the other hand, multi-choice exams in engineering courses have a very special format: the exam just includes a collection of different numerical values as options, where the students must choose the option closest to the numerical results he obtained. On the other hand, several professors also noted this approach influences negatively the students results, so for many years its use was negligible. In order to scientifically analyze how the exam format affects the students’ results, a pilot experience was planned and carried out in Universidad Politécnica de Madrid during the 2022/23 academic year. All students attended to the same learning activities and followed the same teaching methodology. But, for the final evaluation, two different groups were organized. One group (control group) did a short-answer type exam. On the other hand, a second group (pilot group) received the exact same exam but prepared according to a multi-choice format. Results confirmed students’ informal observations. Statistical tests proved a significant difference between academic results in the pilot and control groups, being results in the pilot groups worse than in the control group. Effects such as the Pygmalion effect may explain this difference. Read More
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