Abstract:

A novel system has been tested to qualify students for a university subject. This subject, located in the first year of an engineering bachelor, has an eminently introductory character within the global discipline. Thus, it has been designed for the student to make abundant (although relatively simple) periodic exercises related with the basis of the matter (more than 30), made in the classroom itself or through the online platform, individually or in groups, with the aim of performing a first contact with their future professional career. To qualify such an abundant number of exercises and with the objective that the student has a more accurate and updated knowledge of his evolution in the course, we have been applying for 10 courses a novel qualifying system based on a positive/negative scale.

Every student begins the course with an initial score of 500 points, that would be equivalent to a final grade of 5.00 out of 10 (using the Spanish academic notation). Each exercise that the student performs is valued within a specific positive / negative range (for example, exercise 1.1, qualifying value: ± 20 points) so that the teacher corrects and qualifies it according to a scale that goes from -20 (absolutely incorrect) to +20 (perfectly executed) passing through the intermediates -10, 0, +10 points. Obviously, the range of every exercise depends on its difficulty. Once qualified, the student knows the qualifying mark of his/her exercise as soon as possible and adds or subtracts it to the accumulated score, knowing what is his/her present global score at every moment. The total points put into play must allow the students reaching a final score of 1000 points (maximum qualification). When the course finishes, every student will have a final mark according with his/her accumulated score. Finally, this qualification (between 0 and 1000 points) will have a proportional translation into the common spanish qualification system (between 0 and 10).

The advantages of this system are: a) the student knows at every moment his current qualification, wich permits him to make a correct dosage of his efforts. b) The teacher knows more accurately the evolution and current marks of every student, allowing him to introduce pedagogical/methodological inputs at every moment. C) Students consider this system "more fair", as it has been registered in the final survey. This model of qualification has been very well received by our students and motivates them to improve their final score every day. In a recent anonymous survey, a good majority of the students consider the innovative qualifying system as very positive and motivating (more than 80%).

Keywords:

Qualification, evaluation, motivation.