UCLA: IMMEX PROBLEM-SOLVING SOFTWARE

Challenged by a desire to create more effective examinations, a UCLA professor developed a revolutionary Microsoft® Windows™-based software program that reduces passive student learning and requires students to be more active, independent learners and problem solvers.

How do you ensure students are learning? That question has always plagued educators, and Professor Ron Stevens, Ph.D., UCLA School of Medicine, is no exception.

When Stevens became coordinator of the Immunology Department's courses in 1987, he attempted to answer the question himself. His first move was to eliminate traditional multiple choice exams. "All they do is make students memorize information, not solve problems," he points out.

With that step taken, Stevens faced a big challenge-replacing the multiple choice format with a new kind of exam that would not just test the students' knowledge, but also force them to demonstrate an ability to solve problems.

Developing a Computer-Based Solution

Stevens began by attempting to create a paper-based problem-solving test format. However, he was dissatisfied with the results, primarily because the format made it impossible to track how the students solved the problems in the test. "We didn't want to just get answers," says Stevens. "We also wanted to see how the students gathered and integrated the information during the problem-solving process, and where the process failed."

Realizing that pencil-and-paper testing methods lacked the intellectual depth Stevens wanted, he decided to create a computer-based problem-solving tool. Stevens, who had never programmed before, learned Turbo Pascal® and developed some prototype problem-solving simulations.

The results were encouraging-so encouraging that Stevens decided to rewrite the program for the Microsoft Windows operating system. "Windows was just starting to gain in popularity," explains Stevens. "So I switched from Pascal to the Windows Software Development Kit." Stevens learned C programming and how to program in Windows. Before long, his research lab was forgotten as he concentrated his efforts on fine-tuning his problem-solving software. He now uses Microsoft C++ to develop the software. Raima Data Manager is used as the database.

Stevens calls his program IMMEX™, for Interactive Multi-Media Exercises. The software consists of three modules: IMMEX::AUTHOR/ DELIVERY, which allows educators to create and implement problem-solving situations; IMMEX::ANALYSIS, which analyzes data as students work on problems and displays the student's search for the correct solution; and IMMEX::NEURAL, an experimental program that uses neural network technology to learn patterns of successful problem solutions.

Originally designed for medical education, the software is now also used to test high school and undergraduate students. It has been used to create tests in geometry, chemistry, biology, forensic medicine, and other courses. Stevens says 70 different medical schools are using IMMEX immunology problems in their curricula. At UCLA, the IMMEX program is installed on a Novell® NetWare® LAN with a 486 server and 16 386-based workstations.

"The software gives students a starting condition and a goal condition," says Stevens. "Then they work with the

program to get the information they need to solve problems." For example,

the immunology examination program requires students to formulate hypotheses about the nature of immunologic defects based on a general patient's history, and then derive a diagnosis by using a variety of laboratory tests. Database files created by the program record the student's name; starting, ending, and elapsed times; sequence of laboratory tests selected; student answers; and final scores. Students are generally graded based on the number of tests required to complete the problem.

The IMMEX::ANALYSIS module is used to analyze the test results. This module allows the instructor to view an individual student's approach to the problem, as well as the overall problem solving patterns of the class as a whole. "By using sophisticated SQL database command queries, individual and group performances can be visualized based on the problem, the score, student IDs, dates, times, test selections, and other criteria," says Stevens. Dynamic data exchange (DDE) links to Microsoft Excel enable users to further analyze, study, and manipulate the data.

Seeing How Students Think

Stevens says the IMMEX program has gained rapid acceptance, not only for its effectiveness in testing students' problem-solving ability, but also for the insights it provides into the way students think. "There's nothing like this in the world," says Stevens. "It gives us the ability to electronically recreate the thought process."

The IMMEX simulations are superior at reinforcing learned material and placing it in context, and students are very enthusiastic about the program.

According to Stevens, the timeline provided by the IMMEX program also offers valuable information about how problems are solved. "IMMEX tracks the amount of time between each step in the process," he explains. "We can see a flurry of activity as a student pursues a hypothesis, then a long gap if the hypothesis turns out to be incorrect." Stevens says students with a firm grasp of course material pursue similar strategies, while those unable to solve the problems strike out blindly with no discernible strategy. This unique feature makes IMMEX a valuable evaluation tool.

At the same time, the program provides useful feedback to the students. "By displaying maps of good solutions, students can see how they zigged when they should have zagged," says Stevens.

Stevens is also pleased with the way IMMEX makes effective use of the computer as a teaching and learning tool. "A lot of software is like turning pages in a book," he says. "But IMMEX harnesses the power of the computer to teach students."

And, thanks to the simple Windows-based interface of IMMEX::AUTHOR/ DELIVERY, even nonprogrammers can develop IMMEX applications. "By using a Windows-based interface, these development tools radically shorten the time required to design and implement simulations for a wide variety of problem-solving situations," says Stevens. "In two days, we can teach 20 high school teachers how to create their own problems." Stevens adds that even high school students have used IMMEX to create their own tests- which they administer to their parents.

Looking Ahead: Learning to Recognize Success

Stevens is working on the next element of IMMEX, IMMEX::NEURAL. "We're training artificial neural networks to recognize what success and nonsuccess means in a problem," he says. According to Stevens, in 6,000 runs of an IMMEX problem, no two students solved it the same way. However, each problem has a pattern in how students select information that is correlated with success. He is using this information to teach the software to "think."

In upcoming versions of IMMEX, this may allow Stevens to provide feedback to students as they solve a problem. "Each time a student makes a menu selection, the program will ask the neural network if the student is on the right track," he says. "We can use this information to, in effect, tell students if they're getting 'warmer' or 'colder.'"

IMMEX has proved to be a uniquely effective learning tool. It has also provided a fascinating perspective on how people approach and solve problems. "We've discovered that there are good ways and even elegant ways to solve problems," says Stevens. "But there is no right way."

Solution Overview

        School University of California Los Angeles
      Solution Problem-solving software
  Architecture Custom Windows-based applications
 Products Used Microsoft C
               Microsoft C++
               Microsoft Excel
               Microsoft Windows operating system
               Microsoft Windows Software Development Kit
               Raima Data Manager
   Development 
     Resources In-house
       Benefit Provides effective means of testing students' problem
               solving ability; tracks problem solving process; easy
               for non-programmers to create their own problem-solving simulations

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