Online formative assessment: does it work?

Summary of the session presented by Paul Catley (University of the West of England) at the UKCLE seminar on e-assessment held on 31 January 2008 – for full details of Paul’s research see the PowerPoint presentation at the bottom of the page. If you would like to know more, or to replicate the research, contact Paul on e-mail: paul.catley@uwe.ac.uk.

E-learning is often hailed as a means of enhancing mass education in a time of limited resources. However, despite a glut of literature on how to enhance education through e-learning, there is very little evidence of what works.

The presentation examines the impact of online formative quizzes in a relatively large first year compulsory undergraduate law module. The impact is also traced through other first year law modules and forward to assess the impact on final degree classification.

The results are spectacular. Those who opted to take the quizzes performed very significantly better than those who did not. This difference is not just seen in the module in which the quizzes were included but throughout the first year, and it was still very evident at the point of graduation.

The outcomes are all the more dramatic when the nature of those who took quizzes was examined. Quiz takers had virtually the same A level entry qualifications as non-quiz takers and yet performed far better – challenging the idea that it would be the ‘better’ students who took advantage of the quizzes. Further analysis revealed that non-traditional (ie mature, non A level entry and international) students were more likely to take the quizzes than their counterparts.

Last Modified: 30 June 2010