Fix It Each Semester, Dr. Lawrence Administers a Comprehensive Final Exam to Exam

question 13

Essay

Fix It
Each semester, Dr. Lawrence administers a comprehensive final exam to her Biology I students. She is always surprised at how poorly students do on the exam and decides to investigate why. This semester Dr. Lawrence adds one last question to the exam. The question asks "How well do you think you did on this exam?" and the response items are 1 = exceptional, 2 = above average, 3 = average, 4 = below average, 5 = poor. Consistent with past exams, students perform relatively poorly on this exam. The mean score was 68%. Interestingly, she finds that most students felt they did well on the exam. Nearly 75% of the class indicated they thought they did at least above average, 20% of the class felt they did average, and only 5% said they performed below average.
Discuss the discrepancy between actual exam scores and perceived performance. Describe how Dr. Lawrence should test whether a relationship between actual test performance and perceived test performance exists.

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Definitions:

Physical

Relating to the body as opposed to the mind or emotions, or pertaining to physical material and phenomena in nature.

Critical Period

A specific time during development when the exposure to certain stimuli or experiences is necessary for normal development in later stages.

German

Pertains to anything related to Germany, its people, culture, or language.

Plasticity

The capacity of the brain to change and adapt in response to experience, learning, or injury.