Medical Students' Academic Achievement Differences in Annual and Semester-Based Examination Systems: Anatomy Subject Scores As an Example.

Shahid A Akhund

doi:10.7759/cureus.19775

Abstract

Introduction: Various factors including the system of examination affect students’ academic achievement. Annual or semester-based examinations are commonly observed practices. Students like semester system, as their academic performance is significantly higher in this system. Medical education in Pakistan has largely followed the British system of preclinical and clinical years of teaching followed by end-of-year examinations. In the wake of medical education reform, the semester system of examination having objective assessment was recently introduced in medical institutes of Pakistan. There is no empirical evidence regarding the effects of this change on medical students’ academic achievement. This study aimed to assess whether the semester system has made any difference in the academic performance of medical students as compared to the annual system of examination.Method: Anatomy percentage scores of two batches of students who sequentially took annual and semester examinations were collected from a medical university. The data were analyzed for normality and later descriptive and inferential statistical tests were carried.Results: The data of 748 students (semester = 319 and annual = 429) were entered for analysis. The students who took semester-based examination (N = 319, M = 72.30, SD = 8.25) performed better than the students who took annual examination (N = 429, M = 64.36, SD = 10.69). The difference in mean percentage scores was statistically significant (t-test = 11.04, degrees of freedom (df) = 746; p < 0.01; 95% CI, 6.53-9.35).Discussion: The results demonstrated the enhanced scores of students who sat the semester examination. The findings of this research supported the earlier studies that suggested the restructuring of course durations and examination system have enhanced students’ achievement. Also, the objective assessments method showed improved academic performance.Conclusion: The study found that anatomy knowledge assessment scores of students who sat semester examination were significantly higher than students who sat the end-of-year examination. Further studies are needed to understand if this difference is also observed in other basic sciences subjects and continues in the performance clinical years.

Highlights

Various factors including the system of examination affect students’ academic achievement
It has been reported that the semester system, as compared to the annual system, of curriculum delivery and assessment is better at producing higher achievement scores as a result of more effective and comprehensive student learning [2]
This study investigated the difference in the knowledge component of anatomy achievement scores between students taught and assessed in the traditional annual examination system and students taught and assessed in the reformed semester-based examination system

Summary

Introduction

Various factors including the system of examination affect students’ academic achievement. This study aimed to assess whether the semester system has made any difference in the academic performance of medical students as compared to the annual system of examination. Students sit an end-of-year examination, and in a semester system, a six-monthly examination These examinations, scheduled after various lengths duration, affect the academic achievement of the students [3]. Students adopt different learning strategies based on factors including the course they take and the type of examination they sit [6]. It has been reported that the semester system, as compared to the annual system, of curriculum delivery and assessment is better at producing higher achievement scores as a result of more effective and comprehensive student learning [2]

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Discussion

Conclusion