DIDACTIC RESEARCH IN PHYSICS FOR ENGINEERING: A COMPARATIVE STUDY ABOUT ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF STUDENTS FROM UNTREF THROUGH TWO WAYS OF EVALUATING KNOWLEDGE

This exploratory research is purposed to find a correlation between the academic performance of several groups of Engineering students and the way of evaluating knowledge, conducted over two semesters.

Following the line of 'systematic evaluation' proposed by some authors, we compare the performance of at least one group of students in the subject Physics I. We compare the exams results obtained by using the 'traditional method' -which consists of two exams and two make-up tests during the semester and a final exam once the semesters is concluded- with the same number of students evaluated by several short-term exams. This second group of exams would consists of other kind of problems, and a practical work. We also sort the answers or explanations given by students to find a correlation between the teaching-learning method and the number and nature of mistakes they make. The results obtained in this research is intended to clarify some misconceptions about university education, and seek to optimize teaching-learning processes at the university level, in particular within the area natural sciences.