Conceptual design and implementation of an online-based performance test system for the Medical Faculty at the University of Ulm

The Institute for Anatomy and Cell Biology offers students a formative examination called LeistungsCheck. It is comprised of a questionnaire containing 100 question items and a compulsory pre-test survey. The pre-test survey in turn consists of three parts that each acquire different kinds of data: demographical information, students’ self-assessment and the evaluation of the LeistungsCheck itself. The questions presented in the main questionnaire are categorized by anatomical region and three degrees of difficulty, i.e., easy, medium and difficult. The examination is held once at the beginning of each semester. After each test, students receive their result in the particular test as well as an analysis of their progress in developing their medical knowledge throughout the semester. The results of past tests are compared to the individual result in the latest test and each student is compared to their respective reference group. So far, this entire process contains great amounts of manual work. The questionnaires are each individually composed and the results scanned and converted into the appropriate formats for statistical processing. This generates a considerable workload on the staff responsible for the test. With the LeistungsCheck now being offered not only to students of dentistry, but also to students of human medicine, the number of participants is expected to increase by a factor of 5, which makes handling the data near impossible for the few staff members available.

For this reason, the Institute for Anatomy and Cell Biology has initiated the development of a web-based LeistungsCheck. Its purpose is to automate almost every aspect of the process described above. The desired results of the employment of such a system are a considerably simplified process and faster delivery of the analysis reports to the students. This project is documented here.