Gregerson, A., & Franey, S. (2012, June), Optional Final Exams as an Assessment Tool in  Engineering Curricula    Paper presented at 2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, San Antonio, Texas. 10.18260/1-2--21771

\bibitem{asee_peer_21771}
  Gregerson, A., \& Franey, S. (2012, June), \emph{Optional Final Exams as an Assessment Tool in  Engineering Curricula  }
  Paper presented at 2012 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, San Antonio, Texas.
  10.18260/1-2--21771

Anthony Gregerson and Sean Franey.  "Optional Final Exams as an Assessment Tool in  Engineering Curricula  ".  2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, San Antonio, Texas, 2012, June.  ASEE Conferences, 2012.  https://peer.asee.org/21771 Internet.  13 Dec, 2024

\bibitem{asee_peer_21771}
  Anthony Gregerson and Sean Franey.
  "Optional Final Exams as an Assessment Tool in  Engineering Curricula  ".
  \emph{2012 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, San Antonio, Texas, 2012, June}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2012.
  https://peer.asee.org/21771 Internet.  13 Dec, 2024

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_21771
author = "Anthony Gregerson and Sean Franey"
title = "Optional Final Exams as an Assessment Tool in  Engineering Curricula  "
booktitle = "2012 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition"
year = "2012"
month = "June"
address = "San Antonio, Texas"
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://peer.asee.org/21771}
number = {10.18260/1-2--21771}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  -                    Optional Final Exams as an Assessment Tool in                                   Engineering CurriculaA common complaint from engineering students is that too many of their courses are“backloaded” – that is, that course project deadlines coupled with end-of-semester exams resultin disproportionately heavy workloads in the final weeks of the semester – a problem that iscompounded for students taking multiple engineering courses concurrently. This phenomenonshould be of concern to educators in engineering because student stress and fatigue may reducethe reliability of our testing instruments during this critical assessment period and because suchexperiences may lead otherwise talented students to leave engineering for other disciplines; inSeymour and Hewitt’s 1997 book on student defections from science-based majors, over onethird cited of students who left these majors cited course “overload” as a primary factor in theirdecision. As an attempt to reduce backloading, we have experimented with the use of optionalcomprehensive final exams in place of mandatory ones. Under this system, we allow students thechoice of whether to take the final exam, including it in the grade for only the students who optto take it. The concept of optional final exams follows from a pair of arguments: (1) Studentswho demonstrate mastery of the course content on a mid-semester exam will be able to reacquireit as needed, so it is unnecessary to retest them at the end of the semester, and (2) students whoperformed poorly on early assessments but believe they have improved their mastery of thematerial since then should be allowed a chance to demonstrate this improvement. To evaluate theimpact of optional final exams, we deployed them in two different courses, a senior engineeringcourse focused on high-level application and design and a freshman/sophomore engineeringcourse focused on foundational knowledge and skills. We compared the results of implementingan optional exam in the two different courses, between different versions of the optional exam inthe same course in consecutive semesters, and between mandatory and optional exams in thesame course. From this data we address the following research questions:   •   What fraction of students take advantage of optional final exams?   •   How successful are students at identifying whether they should take an optional final?       Are low-performing students taking advantage of the exam? Are high-performing       students taking it unnecessarily? How often do students improve their grades by taking       the optional final?   •   What is the impact of giving students some control over the ratio that the final exam       contributes to their final grade in point-driven assessment systems? Does it yield       significant differences in their overall grades?   •   How do score distributions on optional exams compare to those of mandatory exams?   •   Are students satisfied, dissatisfied, or indifferent about optional exam schemes?In addition to our evaluation of the experimental evidence, we provide a qualitative discussion ofthe issues we encountered when using an optional final exam in practice and giverecommendations on how to mitigate potential pitfalls.
AU  - Anthony Gregerson
AU  - Sean Franey
CY  - San Antonio, Texas
DA  - 2012/06/10
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Optional Final Exams as an Assessment Tool in  Engineering Curricula  
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/21771
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--21771
ER  -