You Bet Your Grade! Using Exams To Promote Student’s Self Assessment

This paper reports on a technique used by the author in his ECET courses to help students develop an awareness of their own level of competence and knowledge. This knowledge, when successfully developed, enables the student to study more effectively and efficiently by concentrating on those areas in which his or her self-evaluation reveals weakness. It enables the student to avoid the nightmare scenario of believing she or he is thoroughly prepared for an exam (and possibly even walking out of the exam confident of receiving an “A”) only to find his or her performance was much lower than expected. The instructor may help the student develop this awareness by offering a tangible reward to those students who demonstrate it. The student is rewarded by requiring him or her to identify the exam problems she or he is most confident of having solved correctly, in effect “betting” on those problems. The point value of the problems the student “bets” on are approximately doubled, giving the student a significant incentive to “bet” wisely. Exams are divided into three sections, with each section requiring greater problem-solving skill than the previous one. The student is required to “bet” on two problems in each section. After completing all three sections the student is asked to estimate his or her overall score, and receives 2, 1 or 0 additional points depending on the accuracy of her or his estimate. This is an additional reward to the student for accurately assessing his or her own knowledge level. The exams described here are too lengthy for most students to complete in one class period, so they are given as take-home exams.