Teruel, M.; Felipe, A.; Herrera, M.; Dopazo, J.; Díaz, M.; Gómez, S.; Eyheramendy, V. & Guerrero, M.

Summary

The program of the UNCPBA Veterinary Medicine degree has a strict subject correlative order system leading to frequent academic delays. The percentage of students who completed the Histology Embryology and Teratology 2009 course (considering the partial tests and two resist examinations) was below 80% with a downward trend for the period 2006­2009. The objective of this work was to examine whether the implementation of methodological changes that include activities with principles of formative assessment could improve the quality of the teaching-learning process. The proposal included: to teach the topics evaluated in practical works (PW) allowing enough time for reading and comprehension; to present the students with power point files with images of histological preparations in each PW; to give them the PW assessment in writing; to allow resist of PWs corresponding to basic tissues after delivery of the corrected assessment; mandatory seminars and consultation meetings designed as learning instances prior to final exams. As indicators of the impact of the proposal the percentage of students who completed the course (PSC) and the number of times students sat for the final exam to pass it were taken into account. Periods 2010­2012 (new proposal) and 2006-2009 (traditional course) were compared by Chi2. The PSC was higher for the period 2010­2012 (93.1%) compared to the 2006­2009 period (82.4%; p<0.05). However, there were no significant differences in the percentage of students who sat between 1 and 4 times the final examination (50.2%, 27.6%, 15.6% and 6.6% respectively, p>0.05). The changes proposed would become a strategy to improve the academic performance as evidenced by an increase in the percentage of students completing the course; however, they had no positive impact on the academic performance at the final examinations instances suggesting the need to find strategies to make more efficient the final accreditation of the course.

KEY WORDS: Formative assessment; Teaching; Learning; Academic performance; Morphology sciences.

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