Abstract:

Statistics continuous assessment was partially evaluated through a quiz for first-year students at Business and Economics degrees in the University of Valencia. However, results were not as satisfactory as one could expect, students failed in getting some points in this part of the final mark, and also in the purpose of learning during the course and not leaving all the study for the days before the exam. This can happen maybe because students did not study sufficiently or because they were not motivated.

Within this academic year, the teachers involved in the subject have decided to evaluate the same contents in a quiz, but implementing a preparatory activity with an Interactive Voting System during the previous class.

This activity consists in make students study some part of the content and work in groups of experts. Each group should study accurately a unit of the program and explain it to other classmates. At the end, every student should be able to answer any question, have they prepared this part of the content or not.

The final part of this preparatory session is a set of multiple choice questions selected by the teacher and some others proposed by students. These questions are answered through electronic devices from an Interactive Voting System, which has advantages for both parts, the students and the teacher. On the one hand, students can get an immediate feedback of their answers and also global percentages of response in each answer, so they can see how much they have learned and compare with other classmates. On the other hand, lecturers obtain the performance of each student, since answers are traceable and the system stores all this detailed information.

The use of technologies makes attractive this activity and motivates students. In addition, the set of questions is proposed as a competition among small groups of students, in order to encourage their implication in the activity.

The week after this activity, students answer the quiz which counted for the final mark of the subject.

Finally, results of the quiz were compared with last year quiz results in order to assess the efficacy of the preparatory activity.

Keywords:

Interactive Voting System, group activity, continuous assessment.