Affiliations: Institute of Computing Science, University of
Technology, Poznan | Department of Clinical Pathology, Karol Marcinkowski
University of Medical Sciences Poznan
Note: [] Adress for correspondence: Barbara Wolynska Ph.D. Institute of
Computing Science , University of Technology, 60-965 Poznan, ul. Piotrowo 3A
fax: (+48 61) 665 25 25 e-mail: barbara.wolynska@cs.put.poznan.pl
Note: []
Abstract: A new technique for an automated scoring of students' examination in
presented and compared to a former version. The former procedure to be used for
students' classification scores the knowledge of students according to the
arithmetic mean and thus, possesses many disadvantages. The new procedure
divides students into categories related to an accepted grading scale. This
procedure takes into consideration the importance of particular sections and
the influence of the assistant who is in charge of a subspeciality session of
the course. We performed the division of the students' knowledge into five
categories, each consisting of two subcategories. Additionally, this procedure
selects students according to the outcome of the multiple-choice examination
for an oral examination in order to provide them with a more accurate score.
Exemplary application of this method was tested on a group of 358 dental
students previously graded by the method of an average" in the field
of pathology. The technique of multi-criterion grading excludes unlimited
mutual compensation of the criteria, differentiates the importance of
particular courses, introduces a quality criterion that was not in use before,
i.e. the category of person conducting the course session, and allows to detect
the group of questionable" students who should be additionally examined
by interviews in order to give them appropriate scores. Creating and using the
system of multi-criterion grading of students in the pathology course is an
improvement of the so far used technique which has been based on grading of
average scores. It is an objective and at the same time more flexible
algorithm. The software for the method in use - NOS (Nadawanie Ocen Studentom -
Grading Students) is described in detail.