A pilot study was performed to investigate the effect of alternative formative assessments on conceptual knowledge transfer relating to the topic of buoyancy. The performance of a group of sophomore-level engineering students (N=52) was evaluated relative to the type of formative assessments they had been assigned. Students who performed well on formative assessments containing non-numerical type questions tended to show a deeper level of conceptual knowledge than those students who had been assigned formative assessments containing only conventional numerical calculation type questions.
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