WEBQUESTS AS A SELF-LEARNING AND SELF-ASSESSMENT TOOL IN CLINICAL CHEMISTRY

WebQuests were developed by Bernie Dodge and Tom March at San Diego State University in 1995 as a new instructional activity. According to Dodge's original publication, a WebQuest is an inquiry-based, online learning activity in which some or all of the information that learners interact with comes from Internet resources. During this activity, students work in groups and divide the assignments among themselves so that everyone participates in a group-assigned role. The objective of the activity is to promote "transformative" learning outcomes, accomplished through the reading, analysis, and synthesis of the Web-based information World Wide Web. The various parts of a WebQuest are: introduction, task, process, bibliography or resources evaluation and conclusions. In some cases, the teacher can add a teacher's page with useful recommendations.

The purpose of this study was to examine the role of WebQuests in the learning process of university students in the clinical and toxicological areas of Bioanalytical Chemistry as a self-learning and self-assessment tool. Bioanalytical Chemistry is a course subject of the Chemistry Degree taught at the Universitat Jaume I. Students perform WebQuests in groups of 3-6 members. The results indicate that 1) WebQuests stimulate students’ interest in themes related with clinical and toxicological chemistry, 2) WebQuests are an important tool for calculating ECTS, 3) task planning is easier after introducing WebQuests and, finally, 4) students participate in self-learning and self-assessment experiences that improve their final mark.