Strengthening students’ learning outcomes through students working with quizzes

Abstract

Most instructors of engineering students will be familiar with students who – instead of engaging actively with a given field of knowledge – merely reproduce the curriculum at the exam. This study hypothesizes that students will achieve a higher taxonomic level of learning outcome by using a didactic tool – with a higher degree of understanding, application, and reflection as a result. We have developed such a didactic tool, Quizry, to create engaging teaching sessions through a special learning process: students producing quizzes for one another. We applied the French researcher Guy Brousseau’s theory of didactical situations in teaching and his five phases as a theoretical basis for our study. In the first phase, the didactic contract is established between the students and the instructor, i.e. the assignment of producing quizzes is handed over. During phases 2-4, the students work with the concrete quizzes (a-didactic parts), and lastly in phase 5, recap, cohesion of learning and transfer is established. We examined the relationship between producing quizzes and student learning outcomes through the lens of the American professor Vincent Tinto’s influential threefold model of motivation: self-efficacy, sense of belonging and perception of curriculum. The students’ self-efficacy and perception of curriculum are strengthened by working with the topic several times. Among other things, the study showed that 79% of the respondents reported that preparing quizzes for other students improved their learning outcome compared to traditional learning.