Abstract:

Aim:
Aspirant students starting a professional Bachelor program of three years (180 study points) at University Colleges Leuven Limburg (Belgium) in Chemistry (CX), Biomedical Laboratory Technology (BLT) or Nutrition and Dietetics (ND) are taking a non-committal online assessment of Numeracy skills and Sciences at the start of the academic year. Therefore, an online assessment tool (OAT) was developed to estimate the student’s foreknowledge in Numeracy skills and Sciences including Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Biology and to predict study progress/success.

Materials and Methods:
Since the academic year 2012-2013, the OAT has been performed yearly. Students have to answer a defined number of multiple choice questions per level from a database (250 questions) on the categories Numeracy skills, Chemistry and Biology. In each category of questions, there are three levels ranging from level 0 (insufficient foreknowledge) to level 3 (excellent foreknowledge). Feedback is given at the end of the tool in accordance with the obtained level and the required level for a prosperous study course.

Results:
After two years of data analysis, the OAT tool is found suited to make incoming students aware of the foreknowledge in mathematics and sciences required for a fruitful study course. Consequently, students with faint scores (level 0, level 1) are proposed to follow interactive tutoring programs or to remediate their study program. Besides, the OAT tool is appropriate to estimate the incoming student’s level by lecturers. Students scoring level 3 on Mathematics and Chemistry are allowed within certain conditions to a fast track blended program. Finally, the OAT tool seems suitable to predict the study progress and/or study success of individual students based on a correlation between the reached levels on OAT and the first term exam results of January from courses in Mathematics, Chemistry and Biology. In general, students with low scores on OAT have more chance to fail the January exams, whereas students reaching level 2/3 have more chance to pass the exams of January. In the professional Bachelor program CX and BLT, a small amount of students with high scores on Numeracy skills and Chemistry fail their first term exams due to procrastination or study attitude. Remarkably, a lot of students reaching low levels at OAT on Biology pass their exam of Cell Biology, maybe due to study motivation and memorizing skills. In the professional Bachelor program ND, several students with low scores on OAT obtain a high score on Numeracy skills and Chemistry. This can be ascribed to a gender effect as more women than men are following the study program and they study more conscientiously.

Conclusion:
OAT is advantageous to both students and lecturers as it can be indicative for study progress and/or success. There is a difference observed between comprehensive courses like Numeracy skills and Chemistry and memorizing courses like Biology. In more comprehensive courses, there is an effect of overestimation as a lot of students scoring high levels on OAT fail their first term exams. In memorizing courses, on the contrary, study attitude and motivation is indispensable to study success and explain why low level OAT scores don’t necessary impede passing the exams of January. In addition, by the end of the year an assessment of the complete study success over three years of study will be performed as students that started in 2012-2013 will become graduated.

Keywords:

Online assessment, Numeracy skills, Mathematics, Sciences.