In the School of Mines of the Technical University of Madrid (UPM) the first course of different degrees has been implemented and adapted to the European Higher Educational Area (EHEA). In all of the degrees there is a first semester course which gathers all the contents of basic mechanics: from the first kinematics concepts to the rigid solid plane motion Before the Bologna process took place, the authors had established the final assessment of the theoretical contents through open questions of theoretical-practical character In the present work, the elaboration of a wide database containing theoretical-practical questions that students can access on line is presented. The questions are divided in thirteen different questionnaires composed of a number of questions randomly chosen from a certain group in the database. Each group corresponds to a certain learning objective that the student knows. After answering the questionnaire and checking the grade assigned according to the performance of the student, the pupils can see the correct response displayed on the screen and widely explained by the professors. This represents a 10% of the final grade. As the student can access the questionnaires as many times as they want, the main goal is the self-assessment of each learning objective and therefore, getting the students involved in their own learning process so they can decide how much time they need to acquire the required level

Balbás Antón, Miguel

Díaz de Villafranca García, José Ignacio

García-Berrocal Sánchez, Agustin

Montalvo Martín, Cristina

Archivo Digital UPM

Self Learning and self evaluation exercises database in basic mechanics: a theoretical-practical approach

Servicio de Coordinación de Bibliotecas de la Universidad Politécnica de Madrid

SELF LEARNING AND SELF EVALUATION EXERCISES DATABASE 
IN BASIC MECHANICS: A THEORETICAL-PRACTICAL APPROACH 
Miguel Balbás, Cristina. Montalvo, A. García-Berrocal,  J.I. Díaz de Villafranca 
Technical University of Madrid (UPM) (SPAIN) 
miguel.balbas@upm.es, cristina.montalvo@upm.es, agustin.garciaberrocal@upm.es, 
joseignacio.diazdevillafranca@upm.es 
 
Abstract  
In the School of Mines of the Technical University of Madrid (UPM) the first course of different degrees 
has been implemented and adapted to the European Higher Educational Area (EHEA). In all of the 
degrees there is a first semester course which gathers all the contents of basic mechanics: from the 
first kinematics concepts to the rigid solid plane motion. 
Before the Bologna process took place, the authors had established the final assessment of the 
theoretical contents through open questions of theoretical-practical character. In the present work, the 
elaboration of a wide database containing theoretical-practical questions that students can access on 
line is presented. The questions are divided in thirteen different questionnaires composed of a number 
of questions randomly chosen from a certain group in the database. Each group corresponds to a 
certain learning objective that the student knows. After answering the questionnaire and checking the 
grade assigned according to the performance of the student, the pupils can see the correct response 
displayed on the screen and widely explained by the professors. This represents a 10% of the final 
grade. As the student can access the questionnaires as many times as they want, the main goal is the 
self-assessment of each learning objective and therefore, getting the students involved in their own 
learning process so they can decide how much time they need to acquire the required level.  
Keywords: Self-learning, self evaluation, mechanics.  
1 INTRODUCTION 
The Spanish Universities are carrying out the adaptation process of their bachelor degrees to the 
European Higher Educational Area (EHEA) principles [1-3]. Within this process, in the School of Mines 
in the Technical University of Madrid (UPM) a methodology has been developed for a course named 
as Physics 1 taught in the first semester of two different Engineering degrees. The contents of the 
course correspond to an introductory Mechanics Course. 
The adaptation process implies changes in instructional methodologies which should facilitate the 
deepening in the main ideas of the course [4]. The instruction process is determined by the 
educational objectives, the profile of the students, the instructional strategy, and the assessment 
method being applied on the course [5]. The profile of the students in the first year is very 
heterogeneous not only in their previous scientific knowledge but also in the level of motivation, that is, 
in their attitudes and aptitudes.  
In a higher education context, the teaching-learning process should try to reach the learning objectives 
of medium-high cognitive domain, this means apply, analyze, evaluate and create according to the 
revised Bloom’s Taxonomy [6-8]. 
A certain methodology has been chosen. It clearly establishes the steps for a personalized work, with 
self learning and self evaluation, so that the student can assess the level of success in his learning 
process in each objective, being able to decide personally to reinforce his learning until reaching a 
sufficient level. 
The process is accompanied by a continuous evaluation process. Each week, a certain objective must 
be reached, following the established schedule. The level of success obtained by the student in each 
objective is kept and makes up a certain percentage of the final grade which can help to continuously 
maintain the effort in learning.  
For the students who have chosen the continuous evaluation it has been established that the final 
grade is calculated by adding the different grades obtained in the different components of the 
continuous evaluation and in the final exam. Both continuous evaluation and final exam represents 50 
Proceedings of EDULEARN11 Conference. 
4-6 July 2011, Barcelona, Spain.
ISBN:978-84-615-0441-1
004394
% of the final grade each. There is a restrictive condition which forces, in order to pass the course, to 
reach 1.5 points out of 5 in the final exam (equivalent to 3 out of 10). The continuous evaluation has 5 
different components; some of them will be explained later.  
In the global evaluation process of the course different aspects are considered, such as 
comprehension, application and analysis of the theoretical-practical fundamentals, problems solving 
and practical laboratory work. The course lasts one semester and a total of 15 weeks. 
The students who have followed this methodology belong to two different degrees: Energy 
Engineering Degree and Mining Technology Degree. The total number of pupils is 340, all of them 
without previous university experience. 
2 TOOLS FOR SELF-LEARNING AND SELF-EVALUATION 
The number of students and the frequency of evaluation are two sufficient reasons to choose an on-
line tool, which on one hand is more motivating for the student and on the other hand let him make the 
time dedicated to learning more flexible. Nowadays, the use of on line tools to assist teaching and 
learning is becoming a common practice in universities worldwide [9-12]. 
In our University the e-learning software platform Moodle is used and permits a great variety of 
applications [13]. Each student has a personal user and password which allows him to access 
anywhere at any time by the Internet. 
The course program comprises 15 topics, with a week duration, classified in 6 topics on Kinematics 
(Point Kinematics, Systems Kinematics, Rigid Bodies Kinematics and Relative Motion) 7 topics on 
Dynamics (particle dynamics, general theorems, kinetic, potential and mechanical energy, systems 
dynamics and rigid bodies plane motion) and 2 topics on Statics (plane rigid bodies statics). Each 
topic has a specific learning objective and a defined success indicator.  
The student can access the questionnaires in Moodle and they are composed of several questions 
that he must answer. In the platform a questions database has been created, and the different 
questions are chosen randomly in order to create the questionnaires which will be displayed to the 
students, keeping in mind that all the questions of a certain questionnaire are referred to a certain 
learning objective and therefore to a certain topic. The questions have a theoretical-practical character 
and this implies they are not immediate answer questions, but a process of reasoning is required in 
order to response. Two parts can be distinguished in the questions: firstly a certain situation is 
presented and secondly a statement about that situation. The student must identify whether that 
statement is true or false. Just after answering, the correct response properly explained is displayed 
no matter the student response is. So he can compare his response with the teachers’. Occasionally 
the response includes links to other more detailed explanations which can be viewed by the student if 
necessary. Sometimes the response requires a certain numerical calculation.  
The number of questions contained in the database is about 600. 
The questions database can be accessed along the semester so that the student can revise or 
deepen in those topics already explained in class or even for preparing the final exam. The student 
can check the grade obtained in each objective. And the result of this self evaluation process can help 
him to decide whether he has to take more time to learn certain concepts.  
Nevertheless, the platform permits a period of two weeks for every topic (every learning objective), the 
first week the topic is explained in class, and the next week is the last one to complete the 
questionnaire and at the end of that week the grade obtained by each student will be registered. The 
highest grade obtained by the student is the one to be registered so in this way they will no bet afraid 
of repeating the questionnaires as many times as they want since the grade will never be lowered. 
When the period is over, the students can still access the questionnaires but the grade obtained will 
not be taken into account for this continuous evaluation component of the final grade. 
This methodology has an advantage for the professor since it does not require work of correction as it 
is automatic [3]; it has been previously uploaded in the e-learning platform. 
Below, we include three examples of questions, one from kinematics, one from dynamics and a statics 
question.  
 
 
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Example 1: Kinematics: 
 
Fig.1: An example question on Kinematics 
 
Example 2. Dynamics 
 
Fig.2: An example question on Dynamics 
 
 
 
 
 
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Example 3: Statics 
 
Fig.3: An example question on Statics 
 
In every question, the student must think over whether the final statement (yellow text box) is correct 
or not.  
The students who have chosen this type of evaluation also do two written tests in class along the 
semester, in which they have to answer two questions in each test. The responses must be properly 
reasoned. The first test is taken after kinematics ends and the second one, just after dynamics. These 
tests intend verifying the learning process, stimulating the student to finish his learning in the period 
scheduled and checking the written expression capability of the students. The questions chosen for 
these tests belong to the database, so the student do not have to do anything different from what he 
has been doing in his learning process and the probability of knowing the question gets higher if he 
has done many questionnaires before.  
Also, in the final exam, together with the problems to solve, the students are presented four questions 
to answer, two of them from the database without any variation, one with certain modifications and a 
fourth one which is completely new and is not in the database. This group of questions weighs 50 % of 
the total grade in the final exam. Obviously, it can be stated that the continuous work done with the 
questionnaires along the semester favour the correct answer in the final exam.  
At last, the students with best grades are offered the possibility of enhancing their grade. To do so, 
they must create 5 questions (two about kinematics, two about dynamics and one about statics) with 
their corresponding responses.  
3 RESULTS 
In order to evaluate the efficiency of the implemented methodology, the students have been classified 
into three groups depending on if they followed or not the programmed schedule for the 
questionnaires. 
The first group is composed of the students who have answered all the questionnaires in the period of 
time fixed for it. The number of students of this group is quite high reaching almost the half of the total 
population. This group will be referred from now on as “High Engagement Group” 
The second group is composed of the students who have answered all the questionnaires except one, 
two or three. This group will be referred from now on as “Medium Engagement Group” 
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The third group is composed of the students who have answered just a few questionnaires. This group 
is not divided in two as the number of students would be very low and it will be referred as “Low 
Engagement Group” 
In table 1 the percentage of students out of the total in each group in shown.  
 
Table 1: Number and percentage of students out of the total for each group of engagement 
 Number of students Percentage % 
Group1: High Engagement Group 169 49,7 
Group2: Medium Engagement Group 92 27,1 
Group3: Low Engagement Group 79 23,2 
In the table below, the percentage of students in each group who have passed the course (success 
rate) is shown. 
 
Table 2: Relationship between engagement and success 
 Success Rate 
Group1: High Engagement Group 71,6 % 
Group2: Medium Engagement Group 57,6 % 
Group3: Low Engagement Group 11,4 % 
In the third table, the average final grade in each group is shown. 
 
Table 3: Average final grade for each group (grade over 10 points). 
 Average final grade 
Group1: High Engagement Group 5,7 
Group2: Medium Engagement Group 4,5 
Group3: Low Engagement Group 1,5 
The average grade obtained in the questionnaires by the students is shown in table 4. 
 
Table 4: Relationship between engagement and questionnaires grades over 1 
 Average grade in the questionnaires 
(over 1) 
Group1: High Engagement Group 0,97 
Group2: Medium Engagement Group 0,82 
Group3: Low Engagement Group 0,26 
 
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It is expected to have a correlation between the type of group and the grades obtained in the two tests 
previously described, the first one taking place after finishing the kinematics topics and the second 
one at the end of the dynamics topics. The results obtained, averaging both tests in a scale of 20 
points are shown in table 5. 
 
Table 5: Relationship between engagement and the average tests grades. Grades over 20 points. 
 Average tests grades 
Group1: High Engagement Group 12,3 
Group2: Medium Engagement Group 10,6 
Group3: Low Engagement Group 3,1 
At last, a correlation between the type of group and the average grade obtained in the theoretical-
practical questions of the final exam. The results obtained are shown in table 6 and the grades are 
expressed in a 40 points scale.  
 
Table 6: Relationship between engagement and the average grade obtained in the theoretical-
practical questions in the final exam. Grades over 40 points 
 Average grades in the theoretical-
practical questions in the final exam 
(over 40 points) 
Group1: High Engagement Group 18,8 
Group2: Medium Engagement Group 14,6 
Group3: Low Engagement Group” 4,3 
Table 6 reflects the studied relationship and a high level of difficulty in this part of the exam.  
If this analysis is repeated but taking into account only the theoretical practical question which is 
completely new in the exam (not included in Moodle and therefore not seen by any student previously) 
the results for every group is shown in table 7 and as it can be seen, they are coherent with previous 
results. 
 
Table 7: Relationship between engagement and the average grade obtained in the new theoretical-
practical questions of the final exam. Grades over 40 points 
 Average grades in the new theoretical-
practical questions of the final exam (over 
40 points) 
Group1: High Engagement Group 20,8 
Group2: Medium Engagement Group 15,5 
Group3: Low Engagement Group 5 
In the chart of figure 4, all the information contained in tables 2-7 is summarized in a radial plot and 
the grades normalized over a 10 points scale. 
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Figure 4: Chart containing all the results presented in tables 2-7. 
 
Once the course is completed and the final grades are known, an online survey was performed 
requiring the students their opinion on certain aspects of the continuous evaluation process. 71 
students answered, 70 % of them had passed. About this methodology the following question was 
asked: Do you think that the Moodle questionnaires have helped you learning? The responses are 
shown in table 8. 
 
Table 8: Students responses in the survey. 
A lot 49% 
Quite 37% 
Little 11% 
The acquired learning through the individual work with the questionnaires has an influence in the 
different components of the summative evaluation.  
4 CONCLUSIONS 
The global results obtained are considered to be satisfactory, keeping in mind this is a first experience. 
The application of this methodology must continue in following years. 
There are different possibilities to improve the methodology and they are described as follows: 
The students should follow the methodology completely. It is not enough with a global training to reach 
a high level of reasoning, because each topic has basic ideas which must be analysed by the student. 
Students should not leave questionnaires undone. It is important to motivate and encourage students 
in order to overcome the current 49.7 % of students who have completed all the questionnaires. 
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It is convenient to increase the number of questions that compose the database, especially in the 
questionnaires with a lower number of questions available, in order to diminish the probability of 
repeating the same questions.  
Calculated questions should be created in those questionnaires which do not have them now, so that 
every questionnaire will have at least a numerical question which obliges the student to calculate. This 
will improve the calculation capability which on one hand is basic for problem solving and on the other 
hand the probability of random correct answering is diminished.  
The best questions invented by the students can be included in the database, indicating the author, if 
he permits so, which can motivate the best students to go farther in their learning process. 
Let the students post a comment on the questions of the database such as what the most difficult part 
was, or if the question is clear enough or not, etc. So in this way there is a feedback on the learning-
teaching process.  
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Self Learning and self evaluation exercises database in basic mechanics: a theoretical-practical approach

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