Online maths entrance exams and accounting pass rates of 75-80%

Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) is part of Erasmus University Rotterdam, an institution with an international reach that offers programmes in all major areas of economics and business. Students from every continent apply to its English-taught bachelor’s programmes.

ESE works with Paragin Group at two points in a student’s path. Before admission, the admissions office uses OMPT to check whether international applicants have the mathematics level a programme requires. After admission, the accounting staff use Sowiso to give first- and second-year students the practice and feedback that accounting skills need.

For this story we spoke with Caroline Ouwendijk-Bol, admissions coordinator for the international bachelor’s programmes, and Dr. Jeroen Suijs, full professor at ESE.

The challenge: a growing international applicant pool and a subject that needs constant practice

Admissions: more applications, from every continent

In recent years the number of applications to ESE has risen fast, particularly for the English-taught bachelor’s programmes. That put the admissions office under considerable time pressure. With housing and facilities in short supply, the office also had to become more selective, which raised the question of how to process every application efficiently. And many applications came from students who did not meet the programme criteria, even though those criteria are clearly stated on the website.

Applicants come from all over the world: 60% from Europe and 40% from outside it. That makes it hard to judge how mathematics curricula from different countries compare.

Before 2020, ESE ran its maths entrance exams on paper, on campus. The office reserved exam rooms, asked a maths professor to write the questions, and handled payments and invigilation. For international students, a supervisor at their local school had to administer the exam. That took coordination and trust, and it left room for fraud. Admissions officers sometimes noticed different handwriting on the same exam paper.

Accounting: specific exercises, too little feedback

In the classroom, the challenge was of a different kind. Financial accounting relies on specific types of exercises, such as journal entries, T-accounts and financial statement overviews. The online platforms the teaching staff looked at had no templates that could be adapted to them.

“Our main challenge was that we did not find platforms allowing us to test accounting skills in the appropriate way.”

Students also need a lot of consistent practice to master basic accounting skills. When they practised with textbooks, they got no immediate feedback. Their only chance of feedback came in tutorials, which covered each topic once. Student performance was unsatisfactory.

The solution: online maths entrance exams and accounting exercises built to measure

Admissions: online proctored exams within days

OMPT first approached ESE in 2018 with an invitation to pilot online entrance exams. The examination board hesitated. Online proctoring was unfamiliar, and the board preferred to keep the paper exams.

In 2020 the pandemic made paper exams impossible, because students could not travel or sit exams in person. ESE remembered the earlier offer and contacted OMPT. Within days it had OMPT-A in place for its economics programmes, and OMPT-B for Econometrics and the double degree in Econometrics and Economics.

There were doubts at first. Would online proctoring work for students in countries with unstable internet or electricity, or would they be at a disadvantage? And how would fraud be detected and handled? Those questions were resolved, and when the pandemic eased, ESE decided not to go back to paper.

Accounting: custom templates and randomised exercises

It was also in 2018 that ESE got in touch with Sowiso. Together with ESE, Sowiso developed customised question templates for accounting exercises, which allowed the school to digitise and expand its accounting curriculum.

“When we got in touch with Sowiso in 2018, they were willing to develop custom templates for us. That was the major benefit for us: having the templates that met our needs.”

Randomisation does much of the work. One exercise can vary company names, products, numbers and transaction types, so it can, for example, show a random transaction that students then have to journalise. Students cannot simply copy each other’s answers, and they never run out of practice material. Sowiso also breaks problems down step by step, with personalised feedback and guidance at every point.

“You only have to program one exercise, but students can generate many different versions of it, giving them unlimited possibilities to practise.”

Once ESE had built an extensive bank of practice material, it made homework in Sowiso mandatory. Students had to complete a fixed set of exercises before a deadline with a minimum score of 90%, and could try as often as they needed. In practice this caused too many practical and administrative problems, such as students missing deadlines (sometimes for valid reasons) or joining the course late. The team switched to online tests every two weeks, which proved more effective.

Not every exercise is randomised. ESE also develops case exercises that are identical for all students, so everyone sees the same variables when a case is discussed in a tutorial. The cases are more realistic and offer more possibilities than the stylised randomised exercises. The mix makes tutorials more interactive and helps students see how accounting concepts apply in practice.

Jeroen is open about the effort involved. A simple question with text and a few variables, such as a journal entry, is relatively easy to program, duplicate and adapt. Using randomisation to the full takes more programming.

“I think you shouldn’t underestimate how much work it is to develop the materials and exercises to the quality level you’d like. (…) Putting in the effort will allow you to test many things with just one exercise, which can pay off in the long term.”

The result: hardly any fraud in admissions, and accounting pass rates of 75-80%

Admissions: time saved, and students who perform

For the admissions office, the online exams delivered more than a replacement for paper.

“We expected that OMPT would save us much more time and energy than arranging paper-based exams. It wasn’t just about preparing the exam questions but also coordinating a day for students to take the exam and then reviewing all the papers. (…) We believed that using OMPT would make this process more efficient, and it certainly has. It not only met our expectations but exceeded them in terms of time saved.”

Maths professors no longer have to write and invigilate entrance exams. ESE can set one deadline for all applicants and check scores directly in OMPT’s database, which saves the school considerable time and cost.

Fraud, the biggest worry at the start, turned out to be rare.

“We were initially concerned about fraud, but we’ve had hardly any cases reported, which is reassuring. If there’s ever a suspicion that a student didn’t take the exam under the proper circumstances, OMPT always reaches out to us to explain their observations and doubts. Together, we find a solution: either allowing a second attempt if needed or rejecting a case where a student used unauthorised materials.”

Students admitted through OMPT also do well once they start. In 2022-2023, 94 of the 506 students who enrolled in the International Bachelor of Economics and Business Economics were admitted on their OMPT score (83 with OMPT-A, 11 with OMPT-B). They performed as well as or better than the cohort as a whole, and did not score significantly lower in a single course. In 2023-2024, 35 of the 489 students who enrolled were admitted on their OMPT score (21 with OMPT-A, 14 with OMPT-B). In the Mathematics & Game Theory course, they scored 1.2 points higher on average than the overall cohort: 7.42 against 6.22.

OMPT also gave ESE room to add an exam that fits its own requirements. In August 2023, ESE maths professor Sharon Schalk, with support from colleagues, worked with Paula Beukers, Head of Content at OMPT, and the OMPT content team on an updated version of OMPT-D. This exam is designed mainly for STEM programmes and assesses mathematics at an advanced level, which is valuable for subjects such as Econometrics.

Other Dutch universities accept OMPT too, so applicants can use one certificate for several applications. For Caroline, that is the point.

“In the end, it’s really about what’s best for the students. With OMPT, they can use the certificates for multiple universities, and we all know that they’re submitting multiple applications. So, let’s not make them pay various fees or take different types of exams for each application. (…) Each university can still set its own policies, like whether to accept resits and which types of exams are suitable for specific courses, but having a unified test system really benefits students.”

Accounting: pass rates up from 50-55% to 75-80%

Over the years, ESE has built a comprehensive set of Sowiso exercises covering the accounting curriculum for the first and second year of the bachelor’s programme. In 2018 the course relied on textbook exercises alone. By 2023, pass rates had risen substantially.

“In 2018, passing grades were around 50-55% in midterms and maybe 60-65% after resits. Last year, we had steady pass rates of 75-80% in the three online tests and the final exam. That’s a big improvement, showing students are mastering the material.”

Final exam grades mirrored the scores in the online tests. That consistency shows students are working with the practice material, and it suggests the online tests are a reliable indicator of final exam performance. ESE thinks the improvement comes from the extra practice and the structured test schedule, but wants to see more results before drawing firm conclusions about the method.

Sowiso’s flexibility has let the team keep developing the course structure. Next, ESE plans to bring theory into Sowiso as well, so it no longer depends on textbooks and can tailor content more closely to its students. It is also considering more adaptive practice, so that each student can follow a path that fits their skill level.

“Sowiso offers great opportunities in the accounting field, and we haven’t run into major constraints anymore.”