Pagni Sarah E, Bak Anna G, Eisen Steven E, Murphy Jennipher L, Finkelman Matthew D, Kugel Gerard
Dr. Pagni is Instructor, Department of Public Health and Community Service, Tufts University School of Dental Medicine; Ms. Bak is a DMD student, Tufts University School of Dental Medicine; Dr. Eisen is Associate Professor, Department of Comprehensive Care, Tufts University School of Dental Medicine; Ms. Murphy is Education Technology Senior Administrator, Office of Academic Affairs, Tufts University School of Dental Medicine; Dr. Finkelman is Associate Professor, Department of Public Health and Community Service, Tufts University School of Dental Medicine; and Dr. Kugel is Associate Dean for Dental Research and Professor of Prosthodontics and Operative Dentistry, Tufts University School of Dental Medicine.
J Dent Educ. 2017 Jan;81(1):110-115.
The aim of this study was to determine if dental students would benefit from changing their initial responses to what they have deemed to be more suitable answers during high-stakes multiple-choice examinations. Students are often advised to stay with their first answers despite evidence from other fields suggesting this is not the best course for obtaining optimal final exam scores. Data were collected for 160 first-year DMD students in fall 2013 for three operative dentistry and four biochemistry exams at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine. As students take all of their exams through ExamSoft, a test-taking software application that tracks and records all changes students make during the exam period, the subjective nature of previous studies on answer changing was eliminated. The results showed that all students changed their answers on a minimum of nine questions over the seven exams, with an average of 26.55 (SD=8.8) questions changed per student. Answers changed from an incorrect to a correct response comprised nearly 65% of total answer changes, while changes from a correct to an incorrect answer encompassed slightly above 10% of answer changes. Nearly all students (99.4%) benefitted from answer-changing with a net gain of at least two correct questions, with only one student not increasing the final score. Overall, the students greatly benefitted from changing their answer choice, suggesting that dental students could be advised to change their answers from their first choice if they identify a better option when taking multiple-choice exams.
本研究的目的是确定牙科学生在高风险的多项选择题考试中，将最初的答案改为他们认为更合适的答案是否会从中受益。尽管其他领域的证据表明，坚持最初答案并非获得最佳期末考试成绩的最佳做法，但学生们通常还是被建议坚持最初答案。2013年秋季，收集了塔夫茨大学牙医学院160名一年级牙医学博士（DMD）学生在三门牙体牙髓病学和四门生物化学考试中的数据。由于学生们所有考试都通过ExamSoft进行，这是一款应试软件应用程序，可跟踪和记录学生在考试期间所做的所有更改，从而消除了以往关于答案更改研究的主观性。结果显示，在这七场考试中，所有学生至少更改了9道题的答案，平均每名学生更改了26.55道题（标准差=8.8）。从错误答案改为正确答案的更改占总答案更改的近65%，而从正确答案改为错误答案的更改占答案更改的略高于10%。几乎所有学生（99.4%）都从更改答案中受益，净增至少两道正确题，只有一名学生最终成绩没有提高。总体而言，学生们从更改答案选项中受益匪浅，这表明如果牙科学生在进行多项选择题考试时发现了更好的选项，建议他们更改最初选择的答案。
