WHAT IS THE MARK THAT PUPILS EVALUATE THEMSELVES?

Usually, students in practice lectures are evaluated by solving an exam about knowledge acquired during lessons. The exam is solved as an regular exam about knowledge that students have adquired during practical lessons. Group of pupil in these practice subjects are very reduced but it is possible that all students do not achieve the same level of understanding, and the exam mark may be not correlated with this fact i.e. the exam mark do not reflect if the learning objective of the practice is accomplished. In this way, the aim of this work was to evaluate the student’s opinion about its own knowledge.

The practical lessons were conducted in the same way that previous experiences, and at the end of the exam, the students were asked about the exam mark that they consider they should obtain (0-10 points).
After exams correction, real exam mark (REM) and self-assessed exam mark (SAEM) were compared. They were considered equivalent when difference between REM and SAEM was less than 5% (0.5 over 10 points). If REM was larger than SAEM, it was considered that this student underestimates its own learning and if REM was minor than SAEM, it was considered that this student overestimates its own learning. Then, frequency in which students overestimate and underestimate the exam mark was computed and statistical tests (paired-samples t test) were performed in order to determine the existence of differences and/or correlation between REM and SAEM.
Moreover, these frequencies and correlation were calculated overall group, splitting students by gender and splitting them in their respective teaching group, CT and NET, in order to check differences in students’ perception depending on their learning training.

Data were analyzed splitting students depending on their gender in order to observe if male or female students are more often overestimating or underestimating their own learning.
This work shows the same pattern than overall group: 50% of students underestimate its own exam mark. But frequency in which female students overestimate their exam mark was twice than male students group.
The average SAEM was higher than the average REM in both groups, but statistical differences between REM and SAEM were not found, and any correlation was not significant between both marks . However, it seems that male students overestimate their mark in a large difference than female students.

The main trend is that students included in this study usually underestimate their exam marks but they have a realistic point of view about their own learning in these computing practices (no statistical differences between real and self-assessed exam marks).
Moreover, the marks obtained by students were good enough, therefore this demontrates that students have learned and unterstood the knowledges.