PREDICTIVE VALUE OF AN ONLINE ASSESSMENT TOOL EVALUATING FOREKNOWLEDGE IN MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCES OF ASPIRANT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE STUDENTS

An Online Assessment tool (OAT*) was developed in 2012 and further validated to evaluate the foreknowledge in mathematics and sciences of incoming students at the University Colleges Leuven-Limburg (UC Leuven-Limburg), Belgium. The students apply for a Professional Bachelor Program (PBA) of three study years (180 study points) in Chemistry (CX), Biomedical Laboratory Medicine (BLT) or Nutrition & Dietetics (N&D).

OAT consists of a database of more than 250 multiple choice questions on numeracy skills (mathematics and physics), biology and chemistry. The OAT tool is composed of four difficulty levels that can be achieved by the students, meaning level 0-1 insufficient foreknowledge; level 2 sufficient foreknowledge and level 3 excellent foreknowledge.

Since the academic year 2012-2013, aspirant students have yearly been taking OAT in their first week at UC Leuven-Limburg. The test is non-committal.
The results of OAT from the academic years 2012-2013 to 2015-2016 were analyzed. In addition, the correlation of OAT scores with study progress after the first term exams in January was evaluated. As prosperous students that started their studies in 2012-2013, graduated by the end of 2014-2015, their study efficiency was compared with OAT results determined three years before.

In PBA CX, 59 % of the students participated in OAT. Of all students, 30 % successfully finished their studies in three years. From those who took OAT, 64 % reached level 2 or 3. In PBA BLT, 74 % of the students did OAT whereof 33 % graduated in three years. From this group, only 16 % reached sufficient or excellent foreknowledge on OAT. Unfortunately, only 28 % of incoming students PBA N&D performed OAT which is too low to obtain reliable results.

Work is in progress to associate data on learning and study strategies (LASSI test; Learning and study strategies inventory) and linguistic skills with OAT results in mathematics and sciences to get a better insight in individual student’s profiles and have a stronger predictor of the study course of incoming students. Consecutive data analysis over several academic years will be necessary to fully evaluate individual student’s profiles by a combination of results on OAT, learning and study strategies and mother tongue.

*The OAT is available on URL http://toetsapp.cyclone2.khleuven.be/web/app.php/