Abstract:

The Bologna Declaration marked a turning point in the development of the new European Higher Education Area (EHEA) and implied to reform the structure of the higher education systems in a convergent way. One of the aspects which should be specially emphasized after the establishment of the EHEA is a switch from conventional teaching to a new teaching/learning system: the target of the teaching-learning process is the student, and appropriate tools to accomplish this objective must be developed and used by the educator, in a double role as transmitter of knowledge and generator of learning as well [1,2].

Since many traditional concepts have been historically used, the complete ECTS implementation requires elements to help in the process of blended learning [3] to obtain the highest quality in the new education system.

The purpose of the present communication is the presentation of the usefulness of Moodle-based e-questionnarires within the Virtual Campus Platform of our university to evaluate the previous knowledge of Chemistry students. The advantage of Moodle Questionnaires lies in the fact that active asynchronous methodologies allow both the student and the professor to generate information for the evaluation in a non time-consuming way, regarding the classroom activity.

This tool was applied to the course of Analytical Chemistry within the third year of the Bachelor in Chemistry at the University of the Balearic Islands. There is a legal requirement for this subject in our University, namely, having passed the subject of General Chemistry that the students have in their first year. For this reason, the students are supposed to have background knowledge on the contents of the Analytical Chemistry subject. The use of focused Moodle Questionnaires just before introducing the new contents will give a good “feedback” to the teacher in order to make him aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the students and take correcting measures during the classroom sessions. We think that this combination of asynchronous tools witn face-to-face learning throws back a better teaching/learning experience [4].

The project involves a first step in generation of a pool of questions and answers in the format of multiple options with at least one correct answer. Once the materials are generated, the questionnaires are posted in Moodle and open for answer within a 7-days timeframe and a total time of 30 minutes from the starting moment. After the 7-days period the marks and correct answers will be delivered. No immediate answer is to be popped up within Moodle to prevent potential fraud.

As a conclusion, e-questionnaires represent an interesting tool for screening of students’ background on the distinct topics of the course and a fast and efficient way for receiving feedback on the different levels of previous knowledge among the students.

References:
[1] http://www.bologna-bergen2005.no/
[2] http://www.bologna-bergen2005.no/Docs/00-Main_doc/990719BOLOGNA_DECLARATION.PDF
[3] Garrison, D.R.; and Kanuka H. (2004) Blended learning: Uncovering its transformative potential in higher education. Internet and Higher Education 7, 95–105.
[4] Salzer R, Mitchell T, Mimero P, Karayannis M, Efstathiou C, Smith A and Valcárcel M. Analytical chemistry in the European higher education area. Anal Bioanal Chem 381 (2005) 33–40.

Keywords:

ECTS implementation, e-questionnaires, moodle, virtual learning, analytical chemistry.