Students generating questions for their own written examinations

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Educational Psychology

Background:

• Student-centred learning emphasizes active student participation.
• Assessment partnerships between educators and learners are crucial for effective education.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the development of student-staff assessment partnerships within a problem-based learning (PBL) curriculum.
• To enhance student engagement and learning through collaborative assessment creation.

Main Methods:

• First-year students participated in generating a bank of formative assessment questions and answers.
• A subset of student-generated questions was integrated into the final written examination.
• Key principles for developing a robust assessment partnership methodology were identified.

Main Results:

• Successful implementation of a student-staff collaborative assessment model in PBL.
• Demonstrated feasibility of incorporating student-generated questions into summative assessments.
• Identified critical factors for successful partnerships, including organizational, participation, educational, and motivational aspects.

Conclusions:

• Student-staff assessment partnerships can effectively enrich the student-centred educational process in PBL.
• Collaborative question generation fosters deeper student engagement and understanding.
• Establishing clear principles is essential for the successful and sustainable development of these partnerships.