Abstract:

The Bologna Process launched the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) as an initiative of achieving a European convergence in higher education. The three overarching objectives of the EHEA concept have been the introduction of two- or three-cycles (bachelor/master/doctorate), the quality assurance and the recognition of qualifications and periods of study. However, in the context of the EHEA new teaching and student assessment methods have been introduced in order to improve the teaching-learning process.

In this paper we analyze and evaluate different assessment techniques usually used in the Telecommunication Engineering Degree at the Universitat Politècnica de València (Spain), where the curriculum structure has been designed under the guidelines of the EHEA concept. The Telecommunication Engineering Degree has a total duration of eight semesters, four years. We have focused our study on the subject Radiocommunications, in which two of the authors actually develop educational activities. The subject is located in the 5th semester and involves theoretical and laboratory activities. We have analyzed and evaluated the assessment process by studying the correlation between the final grade of each student and the different kind of assessment activities employed, i.e., test questions and practical problems related to the theory and short questions and practical works related to the laboratory activities. The Spearman rank correlation coefficient has been used in the statistical analysis. This study has permitted us to identify different study habits among students, e.g., students efforts are focused on solving practical problems and less attention and time are devoted to preparing the test exercises. In order to improve the teaching-learning process, the authors propose some actions oriented to assure that the students prepare the subject contents homogeneously. These actions will forward students for true learning rather than only passing the exams, and the latter will simply be the consequence.

Keywords:

Student assessment, evaluation, telecommunication.