Co-creating rubrics: The effects on self-regulated learning, self-efficacy and performance of establishing assessment criteria with students.

The aim of this study was to compare the effects of co-creating rubrics against just using rubrics. By co-creating rubrics, the students might have the opportunity to better internalize them and have a voice in the assessment criteria. Two groups undertaking a degree in Sport Sciences (N = 65) participated. Results showed that the students who co-created the rubrics had higher levels of learning self-regulation measured through thinking aloud protocols, whereas the results from the self-reported self-regulation and self-efficacy questionnaires did not show significant differences. The treatment group outperformed the control group in only one out of the three tasks assessed. Regarding the perceptions about rubrics use, there were no significant differences except for the process of co-creation, to which the co-created rubric group gave higher importance. Therefore, this study has opened an interesting venue on rubrics research: co-creating rubrics may influence students’ activation of learning strategies.pre-print381 K

Spanish university assessment practices: examination tradition with diversity by faculty.

Classroom assessment is crucial to understand how students approach course materials, even more in a competitive environment such as the one in higher education. Our aim was to explore the current situation of assessment in higher education to consider further institutional and training actions. Every syllabus from all public universities in Spain was entered into a database, from which 1,693 syllabi were selected completely at random for a content analysis. It was found that (1) university teachers use a greater variety and number of assessment instruments than did their counterparts of decades ago, (2) final exam score is still the highest-weighted source of information for the final grade, (3) the cluster of assessment practices show that traditional approaches are still the most prevalent ones, (4) formal peer and self-assessment practices are still extremely rare in the classroom, (5) assessment practices barely change between first- and fourth-year courses, and (6) most variations in assessment are explained by differences on faculty/academic divisions. This research has implications for European legislation, university regulation and university teacher training programmes.pre-print1061 K

Use of Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients for Automatic Pathology Detection on Sustained Vowel Phonations: Mathematical and Statistical Justification

This paper presents a justification for the use of MFCC parameters in automatic pathology detection on speech. While such an application has produced good results up to now, only partial explanations to this good performance had been given before. The herein exposed explanation consists of an interpretation of the mathematical transformations involved in MFCC calculation and a statistical analysis that confirms the conclusions drawn from the theoretical reasoning

Changes in classroom assessment practices during emergency remote teaching due to COVID-19.

This study explores the effects of the shift to emergency remote teaching on assessment practices due to COVID-19 lockdown. A total of 936 Spanish teachers from all educational levels ranging from early childhood to university participated in this nationwide survey. Four aspects were explored: (1) changes in the use of assessment instruments (e.g. exams); (2) changes in assessment criteria, standards and grading; (3) changes in the delivery of feedback and use of rubrics; and (4) changes in students’ involvement in assessment (i.e. self- and peer assessment). In general, results are mixed, with some areas undergoing certain changes with the aim of adapting to the new situation (e.g. primary education teachers lowering their grading standards), whereas many other assessment practices have remained similar, especially among higher education teachers. Unfortunately, some of the assessment practices have worsened, such as students’ involvement in assessment which has decreased.pre-print764 K

¿Cómo emplear las rúbricas para implementar una verdadera evaluación formativa?.

La rúbrica es un instrumento de evaluación que permite transmitir las expectativas sobre una tarea a los estudiantes y que, de este modo, puedan planificar adecuadamente su trabajo y evaluar su progreso. Sin embargo, únicamente su empleo desde la perspectiva de la evaluación formativa garantiza un incremento en el aprendizaje y el rendimiento académico de los estudiantes (Panadero y Jonsson, 2013). A pesar de que se ha popularizado su uso en los últimos años, su empleo habitual es como mero instrumento de calificación (Andrade y Valtcheva, 2009). Desde las perspectiva de la evaluación formativa y las directrices del Proceso de Bolonia, la evaluación tiene un papel clave en el proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje (López-Pastor, 2009). En este artículo se exponen las clases de su diseño y empleo para desarrollar la capacidad de autorregulación, autoeficacia, aprendizaje y rendimiento académico, entre otros. Asimismo, se indica cómo emplear las rúbricas para calificar de manera formativa. En la conclusión, se proponen pasos para implementar este instrumento dentro de una verdadera evaluación formativa así como diversos interrogantes que plantea esta al alinear enseñanza, evaluación y calificación.pre-print363 K

Use of Cepstrum-based parameters for automatic pathology detection on speech. Analysis of performance and theoretical justification

The majority of speech signal analysis procedures for automatic pathology detection mostly rely on parameters extracted from time-domain processing. Moreover, calculation of these parameters often requires prior pitch period estimation; therefore, their validity heavily depends on the robustness of pitch detection. Within this paper, an alternative approach based on cepstral-domain processing is presented which has the advantage of not requiring pitch estimation, thus providing a gain in both simplicity and robustness. While the proposed scheme is similar to solutions based on Mel-frequency cepstral parameters, already present in literature, it has an easier physical interpretation while achieving similar performance standards

Detección del espacio glotal en imágenes laríngeas mediante transformada Watershed y Merging JND

El presente artículo describe un nuevo método para la detección del espacio glotal en imágenes laríngeas obtenidas de vídeos de alta o baja velocidad. El proceso de detección basa su eficacia en la combinación de varias técnicas de gran relevancia en el campo del tratamiento digital de imágenes. Una de estas técnicas es la transformada Watershed que junto con varios tipos de Merging y un proceso final de predicción lineal, hacen posible la detección automática en un 99% de las imágenes analizadas. La potencia del método se ve incrementada por la ausencia de cualquier tipo de inicialización y por no necesitar condiciones estrictas sobre las características de las imágenes a procesar. Evidentemente es importante que el algoritmo integre información a priori del espacio glotal, pero este conocimiento es bastante relajado comparado con las condiciones impuestas por otros trabajos que también intentan la segmentación

University students’ strategies and criteria during self-assessment: instructor’s feedback, rubrics, and year level effects.

This study explores the effects of feedback type, feedback occasion, and year level on student self-assessments in higher education. In total, 126 university students participated in this randomized experiment under three experimental conditions (i.e., rubric feedback, instructor’s written feedback, and rubric feedback plus instructor’s written feedback). Participants, after random assignment to feedback condition, were video-recorded performing a self-assessment on a writing task both before and after receiving feedback. The quality of self-assessment strategies decreased after feedback of all kinds, but the number of strategies increased for the combined feedback condition. The number of self-assessment criteria increased for rubric and combined conditions, while feedback helped shift criteria use from basic to advanced criteria. Student year level was not systematically related to changes in self-assessment after feedback. In general, the combination of rubric and instructor’s feedback produced the best effects.post-print1168 K

Evaluación formativa, autorregulación, feedback y herramientas digitales: uso de Socrative en educación superior.

Socrative es una herramienta digital de evaluación formativa que permite al docente crear itinerarios de aprendizaje a través de preguntas, introducir feedback que aparezca inmediatamente al responder y conocer el progreso de los estudiantes. En este artículo se expone una experiencia docente para la enseñanza de contenidos relacionados con las actividades físicas en el medio natural (AFMN) en el grado en Ciencias de la Actividad Física y del Deporte. Se fomentó el aprendizaje y la autorregulación a través de cuatro formas de feedback. Se recogieron datos sobre la percepción de la herramienta por parte de 30 estudiantes que la utilizaron en varias ocasiones a lo largo de la asignatura. Se empleó el cuestionario sobre la experiencia de buena práctica de la Red de Evaluación Formativa y Compartida en Educación (REFYCE), basado en el cuestionario validado sobre metodología y evaluación en formación inicial de profesorado (Castejón Oliva, Santos Pastor, & Palacios Picos, 2015), junto a dos preguntas abiertas. Los resultados mostraron una gran satisfacción con esta actividad de aprendizaje, correlacionada con su valoración sobre la ayuda que recibieron de sus compañeros. Se presentan implicaciones pedagógicas relacionadas con la creación de grupos de alumnos para la realización de la actividad y sus distintos niveles, la dificultad, orden y naturaleza de las preguntas, el tipo de feedback introducido y el diseño de la tarea para un correcto andamiaje que fomente la autorregulación del aprendizaje.post-print129 K

An error based mathematical module to enhance learning in signals and systems

During the last years, the lecturers at the Circuits and Systems Engineering Department at the E.U.I.T. de Telecomunicación at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid are observing more and more serious mathematical errors in the different exams and exercises taken by the students. Although some of these mistakes can be considered unacceptable in engineering disciplines, it is possible for a student to pass the final exam regardless of these mistakes. In this scenario, and aware that results were getting worse and worse year after year, it was considered convenient, and almost indispensable, to develop math exercises that students must practice if they want to progress following a continuous and formative assessment method along their engineering studies. The first part of this work is to analyze basic mathematical errors in final exam exercises of the course “Signals and Systems”. We present and illustrate the most relevant errors detected during the last two years final exams of that course. The information obtained permits us to identify the main lacks, difficulties and defaults of the students. The second part of this work is to develop a training module in order to the students can practice as many times as they want with simple exercises dealing with the topics where frequent errors are detected. After practicing they must pass an initial test to make sure that students have acquired the adequate basic mathematical background and skills to progress successfully in the mentioned course. The questions and exercises have been written using different formats, most of them to be compatible with Moodle platform requirements