Abstract:

Based on a recent experience carried out at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), several evaluation methodologies have been devised combining traditional manually evaluated tests, virtual-platform self-evaluated tests and mechanically evaluated tests. The field of application of these methodologies is a High Engineering Technical School. Four courses taught at the 1st, 2nd and 3rd academic years of the high qualification syllabus have been chosen for this experiment. The proportion in which these different tests contribute to each course is dependent on variables such as the academic year in which the course is taught, the specific competences to be evaluated, the number of students,...that is, the choice of tests to be used is made in accordance to the requirements of each course and group of students. This design is based on a previous experience carried out with six different courses in the same high degree qualification.
The originality of this work resides on the variety of factors that have been taken into account, including the different subjects in these courses, the number of students, their engineering background and level, etc., all factors that contribute to create a very heterogeneous scenario and increase the value of the experience. The main objective is to improve the learning and teaching processes by applying the most appropriate evaluation methodology to each situation. In addition to the academic tests carried out and their results, some other valuable information related to the student's progress is also obtained through a series of questionnaires the students fill in during these courses. An important issue resides to the high number of students attending the first year's courses; the introduction of mechanically evaluated tests has proven to be quite helpful in these cases.
The results indicate that applying an adequate combination of these types of tests allows the students to develop multiple skills to different levels of depth, and allows the teachers to find an easier and more complete evaluation procedure for each specific case.

Keywords:

Evaluation methodologies.