Results of POCAT, Spring 2007

Note: Forty students took the POCAT in Spring '07. There were 18 questions in this test, 17 of which were based on the required courses, the 18th was based on CSE 630. For the question based on CSE 630, students who had not taken the course could choose answer (f) ["I have not taken the course and have no idea (what the correct answer is)"]. In addition, there were two questions about the test, the first about the length of the test ["too long", "too short", or "just right" being answers (a), (b), (c) respectively], the second about the difficulty of the test ["too difficult", "too easy", or "just right" being answers (a), (b), (c) respectively]. Most students felt the test was the right length and difficulty; the answers to these questions are not included in the tables below.

There was one problem in the administration of the test. Two papers had the same code (N1) assigned to them. One of these was supposed to be assigned the code N2 but, by accident, got assigned N1 which had already been assigned to another paper. The results for both of these papers appear in the table below under the code N1. If you are one of the two students whose paper had this code and would like to know which of these two results is yours, please send mail to peg AT cse and we will try to find a way to figure this out. Sorry about this glitch! Unfortunately, we can't blame the computer for this; the codes were generated by hand:-)

The results are reported in three tables below. The first table is organized by student code. The first column lists the code of each student. Following this are columns, one for each question on the test; the answer picked by each student for that question is listed. The last column is a summary column that specifies the percentage of questions that each student answered correctly.

CodeQ1Q2Q3Q4Q5Q6Q7Q8Q9Q10Q11Q12Q13Q14Q15Q16Q17Q18% correct
A1cabadddceadbdeccbb 55
B1aabafdccdadadddedd 61
C1cabdeeacbecddebccd 50
D1acbafddcaacbdbbdde 72
E1acbafdacaacbdeeccf 76
F1aadacddcaacbdabcbd 77
G1ebbadcdcadcadcadbd 44
H1cabbedadadddadbedf 35
J1eebafedcaacaeabcbf 58
K1acbafddceacbdabccf 82
L1eabafaddaadbddbecd 72
M1aabadcccbddaaccecd 38
N1cabafbdcaaabeebcbd 66
N1ccbafdbcaacaddaecd 66
P1aabcfdbcddcbeededf 47
Q1aabcdddcbacbdbbccf 76
R1aabcdcadaacbdbdbdf 47
S1eabafdacaadaedbedf 58
T1aabadaacadcbddbcdf 70
U1aabafddcaadbcabddf 70
V1aabafbdcadcbdcbcbd 77
W1aabafdecadcbdebcbd 77
X1ccbadddcaacbdebdcd 72
Y1cababeacaadbbbacbg 44
Z1acbadddcaacbdebadf 70
A2cbbcdddcaacbbaecdf 52
B2aabdddccdacbdedcbf 58
C2acbadeddaadbdbbccd 66
D2aabaddddaacadadccf 70
E2aabadadcaadbcabcbd 66
F2eabcfddcaacbdabcbd 77
G2caccddaceddaeaacbf 23
H2cbbdfbdcaadadebccf 58
J2cabddddcadcbdebccd 72
K2gcbddedcaacabebdbd 44
L2acbaddddaacbddbcbf 76
M2aabafdacaedbdbbecd 72
P2eebcacbdaacdebcefd 27
Q2acbaddddaacbdebece 66
R2acbefddcaadbdebfbf 64
S2dccddbdcbababcccde 22

The next table is organized by question. For each question, the first row lists the course(s) most closely related to the question. The second row lists the program outcomes that the question corresponds to; the full set of program outcomes is available elsewhere. The next several rows list, for each possible answer for each question, the number of students who picked the particular answer. For each question, the number of students who picked the right answer is in boldface; note that for some questions, because of ambiguity in the question or due to other reasons, more than one answer may be considered correct and, in this case, each of the corresponding numbers is in boldface. The next row lists, for each question, the percentage of students who picked the correct answer for that question; or, in the case of questions that have more than one correct answer, picked any of the correct answers. Note also that in the case of some questions, one of the possible "answers" that a student could choose was along the lines of "I have not taken the course and have no idea". Students who picked such an answer were not counted in computing these percentages; the number of students who picked such an answer is listed in parentheses. The next row lists the percentage of students expected to answer this question correctly; this is a figure provided by the faculty member who designed the question, based on his or her experience with the course(s) in question. In those cases where the percentage of students answering a question is substantially different from the expected figure, especially if the problem seems to recur for similar questions over a number of offerings of POCAT, coordinator(s) for the course(s) and the faculty who regularly teach the course(s) will be expected to look into the problem and make any needed changes. The Undergraduate Studies Committee and the Curriculum Committee will coordinate these efforts.

QuestionQ1Q2Q3Q4Q5Q6Q7Q8Q9Q10Q11Q12Q13Q14Q15Q16Q17Q18
Courses625, etc.680601541560221, etc.625625655655660675660670670680680630
Outcomesa,c,ea,c,efa,b,ea,b,e,kc,e,ka,e,kka,ka,b,kc,kb,c,ka,b,c,kb,ka,e,ka,b,e,ka,kb,c,k
a
222402613903130111294100
b
0338114304012747261151
c
111227143330025024423140
d
1016192525839143277551118
e
62 125 0320 61421003
f
0   17       0  11(18)
g
1   0            1
h
                                   
% Correct535892634160608075736065651763563478
% Expected605060606070606060608080505070608070

The next table is organized by program outcome. For each outcome, the first row lists the numbers of the questions related to the outcome. The next row lists, for each outcome, the percentage of students who answered the questions related to the outcome, averaged over those questions. There is no "expected" row in this table. The Undergraduate Studies Committee will consider any corrective actions that may be needed based on the achievement figures in this table.

Outcome a b c e f k
Questions 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 13, 15, 16, 17 4, 5, 10, 12, 13, 14, 16, 18 1, 2, 6, 11, 12, 13, 18 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 15, 16 3 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18
Average Achievement % 58 57 62 56 92 59

Comments or questions about this page should be sent to neelam AT cse.ohio-state.edu