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Unannounced quizzes improve performance on Neuroanatomy course
Author(s) -
Lacy Priti S,
Dyche William,
Matz Donald G
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.20.4.a434
Subject(s) - blackboard (design pattern) , class (philosophy) , psychology , course (navigation) , mathematics education , medical education , medicine , computer science , engineering , artificial intelligence , programming language , aerospace engineering
The objective of this study was to determine if unannounced quizzes, when given during the medical neuroanatomy course would improve students’ performance as the course progressed. It had been observed over the years that the mean for the last (third) examination, which is considered to be the most comprehensive and requires the most integration of information on the part of the student, had the lowest average. Various strategies of improving student performance e.g. posting lecture information with labelled colored images on the Blackboard site for the course, making the lectures interactive, redesigning handouts, case studies and revisiting the organization of the course had not provided the desired results. It was, therefore, decided to administer unannounced quizzes during the beginning of the lecture period. The material to be tested was information previously covered by the lecturer administering that quiz. There were a total of four quizzes administered at different times during the course. Each quiz took 5–7 minutes of lecture time and had three questions that carried enough weight for the students to want to take it. The class average for the four unannounced quizzes was 7.68/12 questions. When averages for each of the three course examinations were compared with the previous year’s results for the class who did not have quizzes, it was observed that the mean for the third examination for the group who were given quizzes was higher by 5.875%. We conclude that unannounced quizzes required students to keep up with the material on a day‐by‐day basis which helped them on the most comprehensive part of the course. This study was supported by institutional funds.