Exam Wrappers, Reflection, and Student Performance in Engineering Mechanics – Part II

This paper presents the authors’ continuing study in investigating the efficacy of quizzes and homework in an engineering mechanics (Statics & Dynamics) course, starting from academic year 2013-2014. With these longitudinal data, our previous papers on this study concluded that homework did not significantly correlate with student performance on exams and that variations in homework methods had little impact on student performance in the class. Time surveys confirm that students often spend their time studying for the next quiz or exam. However, mistakes made on previous quizzes and exams are often repeated on later exams; suggesting students may not spend sufficient time in reflecting and improving their mastering of topics covered in previous quizzes and exams. As such, the authors have implemented exam wrappers to obtain students’ reflection on their quiz and early exam performance in current course offerings. Wrappers formalize the process of reviewing quiz and exam performance by asking students to formally record where mistakes may have occurred. Additionally, exam wrappers encourage reflection not only on exam performance, but also on how individuals prepared for the exam. Our premise is that the behavioral change from students, such as more reflection on the results of the formative assessment and clearer awareness of where mistakes occurred, may improve their performance on subsequent exams. In this paper, the authors will explore the relationship between wrappers and exam scores. The effectiveness of the wrappers will also be qualitatively assessed from a survey of students’ perceptions at the end of each semester.