BENCHMARKING THE STUDENTS: Measuring My Students Performance Online By Artchil C.

Daug For the past years, it had been customary in all my classes that there should be a diagnostic test in a form of a quiz or an examination. However, there also had been an absence of any written report documenting these diagnostic tests. This year however, due to a renewed enthusiasm in graphing and documenting my diagnostic tests and the advances in quiz technology, I decided to write a report in order to have a record of my students base performance. Because my History 5 class is divided into two huge categories, there are only two major examseach probing the students understanding of (1) the development of Filipino nationalism and (2) the life and works of Rizal (short experience taught me that it is better to combine the examination of Rizals life side by side with his written works). Further, since the former is a long series of subjective lectures on the analysis of Philippine history and the latter a program of interactive classes involving subjective experiences in relation to Rizals life and psychology, there are only three minor examinations the first being the diagnostic test.

Participants Students taking the diagnostic test come from the different colleges of MSU-IIT and totaled to 211 students all comprising my five sections of History 5 classes with more than 40 students each. These students are not entirely classified according to year-in-college, so some students are still in their first year and some as late as in the fourth year.

Method and a New Feature New in this school years diagnostic test is the introduction of the online quiz as offered in quizstar.4teachers.org, which provides live update in quiz results. This was integrated to my already standing website achdhistory.webs.com (formerly acdhistory.ning.com). A video tutorial posted on youtube.com served as a guide for the students to register and enroll for the quiz. Quizstar provides the users with the ability to create classes providing an opportunity for teachers to create a virtual version of their physical classroom. Once registered to Quizstar, students are then made to search their classes (as indicated in their school Certificate of Registration). Though the website provides for many different types of exam, knowing that the students are going to take this without me looking after them provided a challenge. Giving a purely objective exam is out of the question, as objective types are usually easily cheated. However, since this is still a diagnostic test, I eased up on the heavy analysis and synthesis and concentrated to different facets of the student performance as I will explain in a minute. The first, second and sixth questions sought to determine the students ability to use analytical thinking in order to transform a seemingly very difficult question into a simple task in the internet. This also means the student who can get these numbers correctly shows a great deal of knowledge in using the internet as a hotbed of sources. The answers to these questions were never mentioned in the lectures and in the notes/textbook, so answering them demands at least a degree of inquiry skills.

The third (about the encomienda system), the fourth (about the Iberian peninsula), and the fifth (about the friars) test the students listening skills as all these items are discussed in detail in the lectures but are not necessarily contained in the textbook nor in the guide notes. The rest of the questions concentrated more on the details of the lecture series involving names, dates, government positions, and important events. The objective was for the students to memorize at least the basics of Philippine history during the Spanish Period. I have to admit that some of the numbers are so simple and obvious to many historians, but are surprisingly difficult for some students. Even with open notes, open textbooks and the internet, many still got mistakes. This report is simply a report. I am not calculating any correlations here as one of my primary objectives is to simply tell which of the things that I talked about in class remained in their head and which should be emphasized in the remaining lectures prior the first major exam. The data here will be very helpful in formulating the Table of Specifications as I do not believe that time should be given much weight in determining the number of items or points in an exam. The Results Now that we are done with the formalities, time to look at the results: Of the 211 students who took the test, 149 (71%) students passed while 62 (29%) students failed. The chart at the side demonstrates this, while the graph below shows the distribution of students in term of their percentage. Only 3 students got a perfect score, most are within the 60-69% range, while 54 students are within the 70-89%. The lowest score by the way is 3, which is amazing considering the resources made available. Now, lets proceed to the performance per item.

PASS FAIL

Student Percentages
Below 40% 40-49% 50-59% 60-69% 70-79% 80-89% 90-99% 100% 0 10 20 30 40 50 60

The first question presented to the student a portrait of a man and asked if whether or not this man was one of the governors-general of the Philippines. The answer of course can be found by searching through Wikipedia regarding the governors-general of the Philippines, finding the portrait in the test, identifying his name and his role. Simple, but looking at the result: only 80 of the 211 students got the answer right. In fact is the item which most students got a wrong answer. The explanation could be timidity to do an internet inquiry. Most of the time, students use the internet for mp3s and social networks and never for serious research and inquiry. Only 80 students went through the process of reading through Wikipedia and finding the answer. The second question asked for the only British governor of Manila and only demanded the searching (in any engine) of the terms related to the British Invasion of Manila; and since this only happened once, most engines can eventually give a result that may lead to the answer. Again, Wikipedia was the easiest choice. The third question is basically simple since the Encomienda system and its consequences were always emphasized in all of the lecture series. The fourth question presented us with the second item where most students committed an error. This question presented a map of the Iberian Peninsula and students were asked what peninsula was it. In the lecture series, I intentionally mentioned the Iberian Peninsula only twice (and in separate lectures) when I was explaining the beginnings of Spain and the reason why some Spaniards in the Philippines are called peninsulares. Again, I find timidity the culprit. When students saw the phrase Spanish Peninsula (which I again intentionally placed there as a bait), most students clicked on it123 of the 211 to be exact. The fifth question, though easy, can sometimes cause confusion. It asked for the other name for friars. In Philippine history, the term friars is always emphasized that most students still confuse it with the term priest. Without knowledge of the two classification of priesthood at that time: regular priests (also known as friars) and secular priests, it can be a bit confusing. Since I only mentioned this twice also, first when I was discussing about the Doctrinas (1565-1600s) and second about the Secularization Controversy (1868-70s), those who missed it got it wrong. The sixth question is just like the first, but with a more familiar sound: the friar who accompanied Legazpi in the quest to establish the Philippines as a colony of Spain. Once the student search the names involved in the Legazpi expedition, the rest is easy. The seventh was also simple: the rank below the governor-general in the political setupthis should be common knowledge by now but 70 still got it wrong. The eighth question presented a portrait of the Fall of Bastille in 1789 and the students were asked what the portrait is all about. Of course, they did not know that it was about the Fall of Bastille. But the choices are obvious enough that a simple skill in deduction could have been enough: French Revolution (the correct answer, explained abruptly in class), Industrial Revolution (which cannot be because the picture portrayed chaos and conflict), the Great Fire of London (which cannot be because it has nothing to do with Philippine History), Spanish Revolution (which cannot be because it was not one of the most important events in the history of world as explained in the question), and The Fall of the Roman Empire (this is a joke). With the exception of the fourteenth question, questions 9 to 15 talk about the creole movement which lasted from the 1780s to 1872a movement seldom mentioned in Philippine history because of our nationalistic biases. The good thing is that most students got the details right, except the twelfth and thirteenth numbers which focused on the career of Luis Rodriguez Varela, whose Spanish bloodline got him out of Philippine history. No common student knows who he was; probably not even you...probably. Question 12 asked for the name of the other person who was also referred by some historians as the First Filipino and Question 13 asked for the document which first declared the term Filipino with sense of national self-determination written by the person involved in Question 12.

I am very satisfied with the result for the fourteenth question, something that came from my first lecture which before the diagnostic test I found many students confused about it. Together with the third question, they are the items which many students got correctly189 students in both. The question revolves around a deconstruction of Philippine History and form the fundamental conceptual framework for the rest of the lectures that followed it. After all, it appeared in the beginning that the task of convincing the students that conventional Philippine history is insane to a certain degree is very difficult. But this item tells me that most of my students agreed.

Conclusion The test manifested that students, even in the age of the internet where information is right at their fingertips, still find hard to process and seek all these free information. Which to me (or for us teachers) is a good thing; otherwise we will find ourselves without jobs. Anyway, though the students had a huge elbow room to cheat, it would appear that their pride matters and so is the trust given to them by me. Many even took the test without notes and without searching the internet because, to quote one of my students, it will put everything I studied to waste. However, I still find online quizzes and exams should be done with items that needed a lot of analysis and comprehension. The first question proves thatto have Wikipedia by your side and still got the answer wrong means something. One conclusion resulting from this is that one cannot simply create objective type tests in the internet. In fact, it is more difficult to create one that is cheat-proof; and if something like that is concocted it will be more difficult than the usual pencil-paper test. Though I never mentioned this in the item results, many students these days lack the inspiration to read leading to a very low reading comprehensionthose who were not able to answer on the Encomienda and those who answered the Great Fire of London proves this. Those are items that only zombies cannot answer. Many students are also poor in geography that they do not even know what peninsula Spain can be found. Now, this is alarming. If I base it in my standards, I could answer these three items even when I was in Grade 6. I just do not know what teachers in the secondary school are doing with the social sciences. Anyway, moving on. Given the results, I can say that many students at least grasp the basic contents of my lectures this far in the semester and that I will have no problem in adjusting difficulties when I start making the Table of Specifications. There are items that need to be emphasized though before I can move on with the first major exam: the friars and the regulars, Luis Rodriguez Varela, geography and the importance of the French Revolution. All in all, I can say that my first online quiz was a success.