Cross-checking and good scores go together: students shrug

Students can acquire greater confidence in their work by cross-checking their answers, but it seems that they seldom do so. Based on the premise that engineering instructors can and should be training students to acquire this skill as a habit, this paper reports on a one-semester experiment designed to provide substantial motivation for cross-checking and to measure how frequently students did so. In addition, evidence was gathered that establishes a positive correlation between good scores and crosschecking. Alas, despite continued emphasis throughout the term and updates on the correlation between cross-checking and good scores, the number of students who attempted to check their work remained remarkably low throughout the semester. The authors´ results establish that time pressure is not a dominant reason that students do not check their answers. Implications of this puzzling resistance to (or apathy towards) cross-checking, possible reasons for it, and suggestions for combating it are discussed