An Analysis of Question Papers for Evaluating English Language Communication Skills of Engineering Students (Journal Article)

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Abstract: On their way to set standards of international norms, AICTE observed that most of the courses in engineering are not meeting the course outcome. AICTE has now come out with an Examination Reform Policy 2018 to improve the quality of technical education. AICTE advised the institutions to improve the testing methods. A major initiative is to set question papers following Bloom’s taxonomy.

This study is an attempt to investigate whether question papers set for evaluating English language communication skills map with Bloom’s taxonomy or not, if they map, whether all the cognitive levels are covered or not. It also tries to find out the challenges English language teachers face during making question papers. This research has done a content analysis of 117 English language communication questions from 2015 to 2022. ELCS lab is prescribed for B.Tech first-year students in their first and second semesters. The researcher has analyzed each question according to the six cognitive levels given in Bloom’s taxonomy. The result shows that the largest percentage of questions stand on the first three levels which are low-order cognitive levels. Although Bloom’s taxonomy prescribes that in a balanced question paper L1 and L2 should be given 30% to 40% weightage, L3 and L4 should be given 40% to 50% weightage, whereas the last two levels L5 and L6 should be given 10% to 20% weightage. The analysis showed that the question paper did not have any question or home assignment which can cover evaluating and creating cognitive levels.