Established courses the online quizzing platform PeerWise for medical students
All stages of the MBBS (medicine) degree programme.
Students alway want as many practice exam questions as possible, but it is hard for individual lecturers to generate the number and range of questions that they desire. I decided to harness the power of the student body and asked students to write their own exam questions, which I would manage and distribute. As I said to the Stage 2 student in the pilot year, if each of them wrote only one question they would have 220 question to revise from come the exam period). I provided guidance on how to write good single best answer (SBA - the main format of written exam we use) questions, using guidance I had written for MBBS lecturers. In 2013 I built an online interactive practice exam question website using in-house software. However, it was very time consuming for me to upload all the questions and manage, so the following year I set up PeerWise courses for all years of the MBBS degree. PeerWise is a free online quizzing platform that allows the students to author and answer MCQs, rate the quality of other students’ contributions as well as discuss content. Students can self-assess their own performance and see how they are doing in comparison to their cohort. Each module has its own code, I create IDs for everyone and provide continued advice on how to write questions, explanations, and how to get the most from the site.
Assessment drives learning, and students are particularly keen to engage with formative assessment that reflects their summative exams (e.g. SBAs/MCQs) and that they can do in their own time via e-assessment. On the medicine degree programme we give out no past papers, so students do not have the opportunity to use this as a mode of revision. Some students used doing past exam papers as a promnent revision tool when doing A'levels and GCSEs. They would like access to, if not the exam papers, practice exam question.
Since September 2014 when I launched this, around 1500 students have used the site, they have written over 3000 high quality questions which have been answered over 600,000 times. Example MBBS student feedback: ‘Having a question bank is SO valuable in helping us to pass exams as well as cementing knowledge and building confidence. If I had had a bad day where I felt I hadn't learnt anything, I would go on PeerWise and answering questions correctly, or even incorrectly and finding out why, would make me feel better/like I was still learning. I know I would not have scored as well as I did in the exam without PeerWise’. ‘I answered every question available and think it played a role in improving my year position by around 200 places from August’. ‘It helps us learn to ask questions while learning, promoting active learning instead of passive.’
PeerWise: Creation of a programme wide student built database of practice exam questions for medical students.
Assessment and Feedback, Technology Enhanced Learning, Student Engagement
Undergraduate (all Stages)
School of Medical Education
Online assessment and feedback
Individual students
Other (please specify below)