Effectiveness of the Zipgrade app in marking and data analysis in the Human Anatomy Department of the School of Medicine and Pharmacy at the University of Rwanda

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Introduction: ZipGrade is a free online app, and that helps to grade student assessments in multiple-choice formats. It is an effective tool to analyze the student’s performance within a short time. This study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of the Zipgrade app in electronic marking and data analysis. METHODS: The study used the Anatomy III answer sheets of 71 students from Pharmacy Level 2. The Zipgrade App was used to prepare and mark the answer sheets at the end of the assessment. Within 15 minutes, 69 out of the 71 answer sheets were scanned and marked electronically on the mobile Zipgrade app using a smartphone. The Zipgrade mobile app analyzes the performance of the students on each question. RESULTS: The Zipgrade App provided results in the form of percentages, tables, and graphs. The minimum score was 38/80 (47.5%), while the maximum score was 71/80 (88.8%). The average score was 58.4/80 (73.1%). The median is 60 (75%), while the standard deviation was found to be 0.09. Six students scored 85-90%, ten students scored 80-85%, nineteen scored 75-80%, and seventeen students obtained 70-75%. Seven students got 65-70%, and three students scored 6065%. Five students scored between 50 and 60%, and two students failed the assessment by scoring 45-49%. Item analysis of questions showed that question 63 was the easiest, where 100% of students passed, and the most difficult was question 10, where only 10.1% of students passed the question. CONCLUSION: Zipgrade is an important technology in marking and grading, and it is a more efficient tool for a data-driven education system in today’s world.