Abstract:

In the last 6 years the learning techniques used in the development of the module of Construction Materials at the Civil Engineering degree of the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid (UPM) have evolved to adapt them to the new environment of European Higher Education Area. Due to this fact, in this course a new evaluation tool has been developed using the capabilities that MOODLE (Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment) offers. The evaluation of the students is 80% based on the exam results and 20% based on the daily work. A 5% of the daily work mark is obtained with two tests performed in MOODLE. One of them is a multiple choice one and the other a true-false test. The wrong answers in the true-false test subtract a right answer. All questions are randomly chosen from a 100 questions database, and those questions are divided according to their difficulty. After performing the tests the students made a survey that inquired their opinion about the use of MOODLE and the way it contributed to their qualifications. The results showed that over 60% of the students obtained better marks in the true-false test than in the multiple choice one. Comparing the marks obtained and their opinions it was clear that although the students found the tests difficult over 60% of them passed. Moreover the students believe that MOODLE is a learning tool that should be further implemented in the course.

Keywords:

MOODLE, learning tools, internet based learning.