Written and Oral Questions

Most engineering instructors are familiar with written examinations that include multiple-choice and other closed items, calculations, and open-ended questions. Instructors are encouraged to map their written examination questions to course learning outcomes and to examine students achievement in light of these outcomes. Written examinations continue to be effective and efficient means to assess students conceptual understanding. A large number of students can be assessed in the same time period and there is documentation of student achievement. However, good questions are difficult to construct, and students answers do not always reveal the causes of their errors or the sources of their misconceptions. Oral questions, on the other hand, enable faculty to uncover students misconceptions. Oral examinations require that students think on their feet and speak coherently. The use of oral exams, in conjunction with in-class concept questions, was described in Chap. 6 in the example of an aerodynamics course at MIT (See Box 6.1). 

In both written and oral exams, instructors can use concept questions to determine students deeper level of understanding of disciplinary content. The use of concept questions is an example of a method that can be appropriate both for teaching and for assessment (See the work of Eric Mazur of Harvard University for examples of how to use concept questions for learning and assessment.) [3]. Box 7.1 describes the use of concept questions to measure conceptual understanding in mechanics and mathematics at Chalmers University of Technology. The concept questions formed the second part of a longitudinal study that followed students over a three-year period. 

1 Excerpt of a Longitudinal Study of Students in Mechanical Engineering at Chalmers 

The mechanical engineering program at Chalmers University of Technology conducted a study using the Force Concept Inventory, a well-known survey for testing students understanding of basic physics 

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Written and Oral Questions Performance Ratings Project Reviews Journals and Portfolios Self-Report Instruments... 

The table suggests that conceptual understanding can be effectively assessed with written and oral questions. These questions might be included in examinations, interviews, or information interactions with students. Examples of learning outcomes in this category include ... 

Student grades in this course are based on written and oral reports. Each student presents two oral reports and turns in two written reports. Students are encouraged to work in groups and talk about the problems and solutions. The requirement that students present their results orally and individually provides each student with the incentive to understand the material. Student understanding is also evaluated through a two-hour final exam. The exam takes examples from the recent literature and requires students to interpret the results shown in the paper and provide a critique highlighting positive and/or negative aspects of the way that a computational method was applied to answer a chemical question. 

To survey the needs of graduates of Universities of Applied Sciences, graduates from technical subjects at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences ZHAW have been questioned. The topics in question were the expectations they had with respect to their future employers and their experiences and perceptions at the entry into professional life and their careers. The survey was both written and oral, the latter deepening a previous part of the sample. The aim was to interview two to three... 

Attendance should be required at all training modules, with successful completion of exercises and a final written or oral examination with at least 50 questions. 

Lectures and symposia are used to orally give information to a group of practitioners or patients. These methods can be used to address broad topics (e.g., the MCO s process for developing practice guidelines) or narrow topics (e.g., use of the MCO s practice guideline for insulin-dependent diabetics). An advantage of lectures, compared to written communication, is that two-way interaction can occur. Allowing people to ask questions and discuss issues can help clarify information and can facilitate their use of the information. 

There should be an oral presentation towards the end of the semester to the management (which is your classmates, the professor, and the invitees) on your business plan for a proposed new product on the innovative product idea, on market and technology analysis, on the financial and environmental analysis, and on your recommended action. Be prepared to answer searching questions from your management, and to hear constructive comments intended to improve your research, your analysis, your recommendation, and your presentation skills. If time permits, it would be useful to take all the comments and constructive suggestions into consideration, and make a second oral presentation. The product design project concludes with the submission of a written report, which would be in parallel with the traditional process design project. 

Follow directions. If the directions are given orally, listen closely. If they are written on the exam booklet, read them carefully. Ask questions before the exam begins if there is an)Uhing you don t understand. If you are allowed to write in your exam booklet, write down the beginning time and the ending time of the exam. 

I acknowledge that I have been given valid answers to all my questions, either in the written documentation that I have received written in language I can understand and that I have read carefully or orally by the doctor during consultations prior to treatment. 

A repairperson or a tradesperson can offer a window to the working world, if he or she is open to answering questions. Your student can conduct an interview and report back to the family in either oral or written form. Questions might include ... 

In 1982 a questioner in a letter asked whether haloperidol interaets with antaeids because he had a patient responding well to treatment with haloperidol who had begun to deteriorate when Amphojel (aluminium hydroxide) was added. In a written answer it was stated that there are no reports of this interaction but several clinicians had said that based on clinical impressions oral haloperidol and antacids should not be given together. 

The data analyzed in this book come from our work with Big School on developing a vision for diversity and inclusion. We collected data in two ways for this project. Like Big Bank, we facilitated focus groups in which we collected oral and written responses to our question. We took this approach because some employees were not computer literate or didn t have access to a computer and we wanted to include their voices. We interacted with hundreds of people in this manner. However, the bulk of our responses came from the thousands of stakeholders (mostly internal) who completed an online survey, which we launched. In addition to posing the same questions as the focus group, the online survey allowed us to collect demographic and institutional data from respondents. Like Big Bank and Big Store, this enabled us to analyze patterns by various identity group memberships. 

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