Measuring the effect of amount of required student effort on exam performance

Cheng, Hong

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/101074 Copy

Description

Title

Measuring the effect of amount of required student effort on exam performance

Author(s)

Cheng, Hong

Issue Date

2018-04-26

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

• Zilles, Craig
• Davis, Neal

Department of Study

Computer Science

Discipline

Computer Science

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

M.S.

Degree Level

Thesis

Keyword(s)

• computer education
• online quiz
• introductory-level programming

Abstract

In this thesis, I examine the relationship between the amount of required effort from students and their performance on the corresponding exams in an introductory programming class. I employed an online learning system PrairieLearn which is able to require that students complete each question correctly multiple times to receive full scores in order to quantify the amount of work students have done. Two groups of students are assigned different minimum points required in order to get a full score in a quiz. Their effort is quantified by their number of attempts and the time spent on quizzes. The findings do not show a difference between two groups. The students from both groups do not show a significant difference in their exam scores. However, the results strongly suggests that students who get higher scores in the exam spend fewer tries but a similar amount of time on quizzes to get the correct answers. The study also assign questions to two groups which experience different grading treatment on the same set of questions. Group B, which has a tougher grading treatment, is compensated with extra points towards the total quiz score. The findings show that the students in group B submit about 40\% fewer incorrect answers. The study concludes that the effort from each student in online quizzes does not show a correlation with their exam performance, and they check answers more carefully in online quizzes when they perceive that there are more points at stake.

Graduation Semester

2018-05

Type of Resource

text

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/101074

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2018 Hong Cheng

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