Measuring Test Preparation

During this quarter of statistics, the main project I worked on involved creating quizzes for students to take before testing on a module. While I liked the flexible structure of this class, I found that I sometimes felt like I was going into tests unsure of how well I knew the material. The main focus of my course improvement project was to create a pretest that gives students a good determinate of how well they understand the concepts before testing. Specifically, I focused on the two modules dealing with hypothesis testing and quantitative distributions.

In order to create quizzes that are a good indicator of a person's level of understanding in specific concepts, I made the material on the quizzes directly related to the concepts that appear on the tests. Because of this, the grade a person receives on the pre-quiz should give the person a relative idea of how well how they would do on the test if they took it without further preparation. The questions are in either true/false or multiple choice format, and the quizzes have an average of about twenty-five questions each. Additionally, each question has one correct answer and then between  1-3 incorrect answers, depending on the question. All of the incorrect answers are possible answers a person could get from doing the problem incorrectly or without full understanding of the concepts involved. The types of questions I included on these quizzes varied depending on their similarity to homework problems, short answer questions, or direct test questions.

Finally, I researched multiple interactive quiz sites that would be most compatible with the questions I created. I found that the Edmodo site had received the best reviews and that it was iPad compatible so I decided it would be the best option. Upon completion of this project, I  found that creating questions about the concepts really required a deep understanding of the concepts involved. Not only did I have to understand the concepts but I also had to be able to apply them and receive accurate results.

Reflecting back on this quarter, one benefit of this statistics class being largely based upon self-paced work is the ability to pursue projects that are interesting and engaging. In addition to learning new concepts through the required modules, I also feel like I have learned a lot from projects this quarter. While my own project taught me a lot, the projects that my classmates completed also gave me a deeper insight into the world of statistics and its possibilities.

Screen shots of sample quiz questions are shown in the above images