Improving university student course performance using reflective exam analysis: An approach to developing academic proficiency.

Abstract

Introductory psychology is a course that covers an extensive amount of content and often has a larger enrollment at universities that include it in their general education requirements, which can cause it to be a challenging course for many students (Homa, Teaching of Psychology, 2013, 40, p. 169). Research indicates that students need to engage in effective test-taking strategies and assess their deficiencies to be successful on exams (Fleming, Teaching of Psychology, 2002, 29, p. 115). One potential solution for overcoming these challenges, examined in the proposed article, is for instructors of introductory psychology to collaborate with cocurricular resources such as academic support services to provide individualized exam wrapper activities. The current study explores an example of this type of pedagogy, a technique referred to as Reflective Exam Analysis (REA). Participants in the archival data set included 895 university students who had taken introductory psychology over the last 3 years. The data compared students that participated in the REA intervention to those that did not. Four chi-squared tests of independence were conducted to compare proportions of student gains/losses from each exam to the next exam from within the introductory psychology course-comparing students who participated in the REA intervention to those that did not. Three of the tests demonstrated statistically significant differences. Results indicate students who took part in the REA intervention had significantly greater gains on exam scores than nonparticipants. These findings are discussed in terms of how this model could be utilized across large enrollment courses including other sections of introductory psychology or other discipline areas at various institutions to support student success.

All “wrapped” up in reflection: supporting metacognitive awareness to promote students’ self-regulated learning

“…Exam-Wrappers have been shown to aid in the development of SRL strategies and contribute to students’ academic success ( 7 , 9 , 38 , 39 , 58 – 60 ). Specifically, Exam-Wrappers can help students reflect on preparation methods and assess factors contributing to their performance on assessments ( 38 , 40 ).…”

Using The Andrich Rating Scale Model (ARSM) to build a Scale for the Academic Proficiency Among Cairo University Students Psychometric Study

“…The stability of these scales was calculated using alpha kronbach coefficient, and half-segmentation. Their authenticity was calculated using link transactions, content reliability, and factor reliability only (Grewe et al, 2021;Hosseinpour et al, 2019).…”

Randomized study strategy intervention in a large introductory psychology course.

“…Across a wide range of academic disciplines, we only identified five experiments with students fully randomized to an exam wrapper or comparison group, and only two of these studies showed a positive effect of using exam wrappers (Chen et al, 2017; Edlund, 2020), while the other three found no benefit (Chambers, 2020; Craig et al, 2016; Stephenson et al, 2017). There are also quasiexperimental studies of exam wrappers that vary in methodological rigor, and these too show mixed results (Grewe et al, 2021; Hodges et al, 2020; LaCaille et al, 2019; Rosales et al, 2019; Soicher & Gurung, 2017; Thompson, 2012). Moreover, the implementation of wrappers varies across studies—of the two fully randomized experiments that did find a benefit of exam wrappers, one used an exercise that focused on reflecting on previous performance and occurred close after an exam in a psychology course (Edlund, 2020), while the other focused on planning for future exams and occurred shortly before the next exam in a statistics class (Chen et al, 2017).…”