After the course, the nurses recorded their assessment of the level of difficulty of the course related to their own prior knowledge (1=very difficult, 2=relatively difficult, 3=relatively easy, 4=very easy); and course satisfaction (1=very unsatisfied, 2=relatively unsatisfied, 3=relatively satisfied, 4=very satisfied).
The first two rounds of the new procedure were attended by scientific monitoring including socio-demographic data and some questions about self-assessment and the degree of difficulty of the new procedure.
The project described here was carried out for the two years following the start of the degree, after detecting that the academic results in the first year were not very good even when the level of difficulty of assessment activities was not very high.
Basically, two actions were carried out (phase 4): making changes in the methodology and increasing the level of difficulty of the assessment activities.
If academic results improve, despite a higher level of difficulty of the assessment activities, the learning experience will be better and the target competences will be achieved.
Our five AR phases were as follows: Our aim was to find methodologies to improve academic results while increasing the level of difficulty of the assessment activities.
Although some students expressed their discomfort and uneasiness about acting like a teacher and were not sure about the benefits and the degree of difficulty of peer assessment, the post-questionnaire revealed their change of perception about this practice.
From the experiments carried out, it can be deduced that the methodology employed has produced the expected effects, which means an improvement in academic results despite a higher level of difficulty of the assessment activities.
From the results obtained, especially the graphic design projects handed in, it was easy to deduce that these results were unsatisfactory, even though the level of difficulty of the assessment activities was not very high.
