Student Quiz

Initial situation

The curriculum of the Biomedical Sciences program was developed following extensive consultation within the University and Swiss biomedical companies. In addition to a solid scientific background, autonomy and mastery of written and oral scientific communication are essential skills. Writing a scientific article or report requires a mastery of the scientific subject. It calls for well-defined writing rules, such as the use of short sentences and precise vocabulary, in order to highlight important results. In order to respond to this expectation from the field, the teaching team wished to set up a course format that would allow students to reach the targeted objectives without adding material and theoretical content, and by setting up stimulating and engaging activities.

The teaching must teach students of 1ère year to identify the essential and interesting information of a document, to develop a critical and synthetic spirit, and to master the rules of scientific writing, while taking up the logistic challenge in which it is delivered. Indeed, the teaching in 1ère year is followed in common with the medical students, except for this scientific communication course for which the available time is limited to one afternoon per week (half of this time being devoted to written communication and the other half to oral expression).

The teaching team therefore considered asking students to write MCQ-type questions on imposed subjects as a learning tool. The subjects come from the Basic Medical Sciences (BMS: cell biology, physiology, etc.) taught jointly to students of Human Medicine, Dental Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. This activity has a double interest: it allows students to develop their writing skills while helping them to learn the particularly dense subject matter of BMS.

Project implementation

Students are divided into groups of 3-4. Every 15 days, each group is assigned a BMS course that they have previously attended. Each group identifies a part of the course that is suitable for an exam question (e.g., an important molecular mechanism) and composes a MCQ (type A - one correct answer or K’ - multiple correct answers). The writing assignment includes the statement, the answer options, the indication of the correct answer(s), and also the justification of the answers (why the answer options are correct or incorrect). Students must follow the rules of scientific writing: use of strong verbs, present tense, active form, synthetic and precise sentences, specific and relevant vocabulary, definition of context, etc. Students are given an evaluation grid to guide them in the specific points of the essay.

The teaching team corrects the questions composed by the students and ensures that the rules of scientific writing are respected. They ask the SMB teachers to validate the correctness of the answers. Students receive their corrected writing assignments, with comments and an improved question proposal. Submission of assignments and feedback is done on Moodle. Specific courses at regular intervals allow for theoretical reminders and the correction of frequent errors. In addition, workshops offer students the opportunity to compose questions and correct the compositions of their peers. This peer evaluation exercise allows them to develop their critical thinking skills and to validate their knowledge.

The corrected and validated questions are grouped in practice exams. Four times a year, students practice, under real exam conditions, to answer in a limited time the questions composed by their class as well as by previous classes. This exercise forces them to follow a regular revision schedule and trains them to manage time and stress during an exam. Furthermore, the sharing of these practice questionnaires via EduCloud (LMS platform available to students via the EtuMed website) with students in their 1ère Bachelor’s year at the Faculty of Medicine, regardless of their course of study, establishes the 1er interdisciplinary link between the future actors of the medical world.

At the end of the year, the skills developed in the Written Scientific Communication course are evaluated using the same format as the one worked on during the year. Students must write MCQ type questions based on slides from the SMB course. The written questions are evaluated according to a grid.

Thoughts and advice

Through this course, Biomedical Sciences students deepen their understanding of the molecular mechanisms, physiology and human biology covered in the BMS courses. They are prepared for the critical analysis of scientific documents and for larger-scale writing projects, develop a critical and synthesizing mind, and show great autonomy in the various group work proposed in the 2e and 3e year Bachelor’s programs.

The concept of this course is simple and easily applicable to other courses, notably the principle of asking students to take the place of teachers to write exam questions. This reversal of the situation, which each teacher can organize on a one-time or regular basis, leads the student to apprehend the subject matter differently and to better appropriate it.

Students are not the only ones who benefit from this work. Some SMB instructors have reported that reading the student-generated questions has given them a fresh perspective on some of their course material. In addition, the student-written questions also add to their pool of potential exam questions. Despite this benefit, the work of correction remains substantial and requires close collaboration between teachers in the same program.

The concept of this course is simple and easily applicable to other courses, notably the principle of asking students to take the place of teachers to write exam questions. Other SMB teachers have already transposed this principle to have their 2e year Bachelor students write exam questions as part of a make-up exam. The questions can be used as exam questions (mock or not) or as quizzes to be given at the beginning of the course to validate the retention of knowledge from previous courses. This reversal of the situation, which each teacher can organize on a one-time or regular basis, leads the learner to apprehend the subject matter differently and to better appropriate it.

Student feedback

“The group writing questions were very helpful for me to practice writing the questions, discuss with my classmates and be able to present our different points of view and work on the different SMB courses. In fact, through the writing of the questions, it was easier to determine which aspects of the course were mastered and which needed more work.” “I have found these exercises to be very beneficial to the quality of my writing.” “I think it’s great that this course is not only theoretical, but that there are also practical workshops: you learn better!” “The writing classes were good because there were two separate parts: theory and practice (time flies).”