Public Health Law Fall 2009: Course Statistics and Final Exam

Public Health Law, Fall 2009 is complete. All the grades have been submitted. I often get a lot of questions from students about their grades, and how they could have done better. I like to make some of the class data available so students can have a context for their grade and the outcome. I also like to post a copy of the final exam for students taking the class in the future. Having an old exam will provide some reference to the type of exam you can expect taking the class from me in the future.

The Numbers

This was the first time this class had been cross-listed as both a law course at UCONN Law School and as a public health course at UCHC. As such, it had both law and public health students in the class. School of enrollment was not taken into account in grading the final exams and in final course grades. Remarkably, there was little difference in the course statistics with the law students included and excluded.

The class mean grade was a B (84.8) and median was a B (88.5). Removing law students from the computations had little effect. Public health students alone, the mean was B (82.7) and the median was B (83.5). The distribution was a bit more normal with the removal of the law students.

As you can see from this image. The grades were fairly well distributed. You will notice that there are some differences between the years. These differences depended on a number of factors.

In previous years, there have been opportunities for early remediation of a poor grade. Also, earlier years graded on the +/- scale. My class did not. Additionally, this was the first year that this class was cross-listed at the law school.

What were predictors of success? It is clear that the following seemed to help:

1. Public health students who studied in groups, especially ones with law students did better in the class.
2. Students who outlined the class and studied regularly also tended to do better.
3. Students who visited me in office hours and/or emailed with questions also probably did better.
4. Class participation was an easy and effective way to increase your class grade.
5. Writing legibly and in an organized way increased your exam score.

You can get a copy of the final exam here.

Future Classes

What did I learn in class? A lot. Student evaluations were very helpful. In the future, I am considering making some changes:

1. Assigning a basic primer text on the legal system for the public health students and a basic primer on public health for the law students.
2. Replacing discussion boards with a mid-term examination.
3. Creating study groups for students matching law and public health students.