THE CHEM 120 story
CHEM 120 is a first year course taken mostly by students who are either Science or Chemistry majors. 346 students sat the exam in 2005 (357 in 2006) (331 in 2008).
IN 2006 : BestChoice requirement included 10 assignments (each at0.5 course marks)
In 2007: Increased BestChoice requirement by adding 6 Prelab modules.
Students are not given marks toward their course total for the Prelabs, but their supervisor checks that they have completed this and adjusts their lab mark if they have not done so.
Usage outcome:
Compulsory modules: Despite the higher requirement, a larger percentage of the students completed the compulsory work.
A correct answer in BestChoice gets a BC Mark. These are NOT the same tas the course marks given for completion of modules above. In order to gain a total of 5 course marks in2007, students had to choose the correct BestChoice answer 750 times.
| For CHEM 120 in |
Compulsory BC marks available |
average % gained |
| 2005 |
553 |
68 |
| 2006 |
733 |
80 |
| 2007 |
734 |
91 |
| 2008 |
734 |
91 |
Noncompulsory modules: BestChoice is a large resource and there are a significant number of modules that are not compulsory work. The increase in required work also had the effect of increasing the number of non-compulsory marks gained on average. This has increased to an even greater extent in 2008
| For CHEM 120 in |
Average BC marks obtained/available
|
Average total BC marks
obtained/available
|
| Compulsory |
Non-compulsory |
| 2005 |
365 / 533 |
179 / 1712 |
544 / 2245 |
| 2006 |
612 / 733 |
299 / 1164 |
911 / 1914 |
| 2007 |
661 / 734 |
276 / 1877 |
937 / 2611 |
| 2008 |
677 / 734 |
368 / 2415 |
1045 / 3149 |
Student-entered feedback outcome:
There is a survey at the end of every module in BestChoice. Students may rate the modules (worst 1 to 6 best) and enter comments. The response rates below are based on total module completions for students in this course.
Comments: Although the response rate is somewhat lower than in 2006 due to the increased number of completed modules, the percentage of comments that were compliments is up considerably. The 2007 results are similar.
| CHEM 120 Comments
|
Number entered |
Response rate |
% Compliments |
% Criticisms |
% Suggestions |
| 2005 |
154 |
3.9% |
84 |
14 |
2 |
| 2006 |
169 |
2.5% |
80 |
13 |
7 |
| 2007 |
181 |
|
69 |
13 |
18 |
| 2008 |
149 |
|
86 |
12 |
2 |
Module Ratings: The response rate is somewhat lower in 2006, but the average of the ratings is significantly up, as is the % positives and the percentage of the top rating. This trend continued in 2007.
| CHEM 120 Module
ratings |
responses |
average/6 |
response rate* |
% positives (4, 5, 6) |
% 6's |
| 2005 |
1301 |
4.6 |
33% |
82% |
30% |
| 2006 |
1438 |
4.65 |
21% |
82% |
34% |
| 2007 |
1416 |
4.75 |
21% |
85% |
35% |
| 2008 |
1537 |
4.71 |
22% |
82% |
37% |
Additional evidence is that in 2006 the number of students who did over 300 pages more than doubled (48 to 99 to 102 in 2007 to 95 in 2008), There were 887 pages available (919 in 2008). 143 of these were compulsory in 2006 to 154 in 2007.