Abstract:

Background:
We present a validation of our prior self-assessment tool proposed at the 8th INTED 2014, Valencia (Spain) and evaluate its applicability in Higher Education. The main goals of this self-assessment tool is to ensure critical analysis and objective evaluation towards a life-long learning social context. This tool measures this competence and provides guidance within the academic setting to enhance it.

Methods:
A group of students (n=88) of first year Dentistry Course underwent a 35 short-assay question test in Philosophy Anthropology subject. A week after completion of the test, students were returned a copy of his/her examination paper and the marking script for each question and were required to mark their own paper using a numerical scale (range 0-10 points). The results were compared with the marks given by the lecturer. This process was done in the in-course assessment and the end-of-semester (EOS) test summing up to 75 questions. Then, the marking output of the student and the lecturer are compared. In addition, in order to motivate students to assess objectively their own paper/s, an extra 0.25 point was added to the final board mark if the student’s mark would fall within ±0.25 difference from the lecturer’s mark.

Results and Discussion:
The outcome of the in-course assessment shows a low correlation between students and lecturer marks (R² = 0,278) showing large dispersion and variability with an overestimation of the student’s marks: 72.6% report a higher score than the lecture’s mark. This result may be explained due to poor training, as it is attained within the first quarter of the semester and confirms the need to work on critical analysis competence. Results of the EOS test were improved (R² = 0,366) suggesting
(1) higher focus with a lower dispersion from the identity line and
(2) a change of the overestimation population: only 26.2% of students self-assess with higher score.
Comparison of these results (2015) with results from 2014 (R2 for the in-course assessment and EOS were 0.135 and 0.340 respectively) show a consistent improvement of the EOS outputs versus the in-course assessment and a low-to-moderate effect of the extra 0.25 marks.

Conclusions:
This self-assessment tool is able to measure the differences between the in-course assessment and the EOS and therefore, its cross-sectional application could provide a useful indicator of critical analysis competence gain of the students. It seems especially valuable for subjects related to Medical Humanities due to its objective features.

Keywords:

Critical Analysis Competence, Self-Assessment, Anthropology, Medical Humanities.