EXIT EXAM AS ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE INDICATOR

 ABSTRACT

This paper focuses on the impact of exit exams on different elements of the educational process, namely: curriculum development, students and instructors. A 50-question multiple-choice Exit Exam was prepared by Electrical Engineering (EE) faculty members covering a poll of questions from EE core courses. A copy of the Exit Exam applied during each semester will be available as exhibit material. The exam was administered by the Graduation Project and Industrial Training Unit to graduating students taking Graduation Project II during their last semester before graduation. Results indicate that the student average grade was around 52% and 60% for Fall 2013 and Spring 2013, respectively. The students felt that the exam was difficult and that some problems needed more time. The exam results suggest that we concentrate the exam on general basic questions from the different basic core courses of the program. Thus, it is recommended that focus groups and program assessment committee review the Exit Exam questions and make sure that questions are of the general and principle type and do not require any formula or any memorization. We feel that the response is expected in relation to the exam difficulty. In fact, the EIT exam results in the US range between 50-60%. The Exit exam for Fall 2013 showed weaker results than previous semesters due to the fact that it included more definition-based questions. Also, the average GPA of the graduating students was lower than previous years which could partly justify the weaker performance. Some questions were also seen confusing by students and this suggests that the EE Department needs to draft the questions more carefully. It is worthy to add that in any program development cycle, evaluation is ongoing and one should not wait for the completion of the program or the course to introduce changes.