Educational benefits of student self-marking of short-answer questions

Abstract

A pilot study was undertaken to evaluate the feasibility and reliability of undergraduate medical student selfmarking of degree written examinations, and to survey student opinion regarding the process. The correlation between student and faculty staff scores for individual questions and the total examination was high (correlation coefficient ranged from 0.77 to 0.91: p < 0.001). There were no significant differences between the mean student and mean faculty staff scores for individual questions or the total examination: 98% (97199) of student scores fell within ± 15% of the faculty staff score, with 92% (91199) of students falling within ± 10%. Although the approach was demonstrated to be reliable, students generally failed to acknowledge the potential value of self-marking in terms of feedback and as a learning opponunity, and found the process stressful.