Invitation FEBcon 8: To guess or not to guess

You are invited …

…to the eighth FEBcon workshop: To guess or not to guess, a motivation for changing guessing corrections in multiple choice questions

• Thursday, 16 January
• 15:30-16:30, with networking drinks to follow
• Location: Career Services meeting point
• Speaker: Steffen Eriksen

What can you expect?

Multiple choice questions as a form of assessment is frequently used at FEB and is becoming more popular due to the rise in the number of students. Given this increase, it also becomes more important that a proper guessing correction is in place that is fair and transparent.

The commonly applied guessing correction at FEB currently has two problems. First, the way the correction is conducted is often very difficult and not transparent. Second, the commonly applied guessing corrections also promotes the wrong type of behavior from the student taking the test. As the student taking the test can just guess when in doubt. As a result, the commonly applied guessing corrections are unable to differentiate between a student who actually knows the material being tested from a lucky guesser. An alternative guessing correction that builds on penalizing incorrect answers overcomes the problems mentioned above. Results from a randomized controlled trial reveal that the average grade of students from a first year course is positively affected when shifting to the proposed guessing correction.

This FEBcon meeting will start with a short presentation by Steffen Eriksen who will discuss the results of a randomized experiment to promote a different type of guessing correction. Afterwards you will discuss the use of guessing correction. You can also bring your own guessing correction method and share this with your colleagues. During this session there will be ample space for questions and discussion.