Assessment Certitude as a Feedback Strategy for Learners' Constructed Responses

Abstract

Educational researchers have rarely addressed the problem of how to provide feedback on constructed responses. All participants (N= 76) read a story and completed short-answer questions based on the text, with some receiving feedback consisting of the exact material on which the questions were based. During feedback, two groups receiving feedback also rated the certainty of their response correctness-an activity we have termed assessment certitude, Additionally, participants in one of these groups viewed their initial responses along with the feedback. All three feedback conditions showed significant gains in recall performance compared to a fourth group that received no feedback. Low ratings of assessment certitude significantly correlated with improved recall for two groups receiving feedback that did not include their original responses. Among these participants, mental reiteration of the feedback received was the most frequently used mental strategy while participants in a third group, who saw their original responses during feedback, reported using other approaches such as visualization. Article: Feedback has been shown to be one of the most effective instructional interventions for improving learning (Hattie & Timperley, 2007). It has also been a subject of enduring interest for educational researchers, and is a key component in behaviorist and cognitive theories of learning and related research (BangertDrowns, Kulik, Kulik, &Morgan, 1991). One consensus about feedback that has been building among researchers is that effective feedback should include verification about the correctness of a response as well as an elaboration that provides learners with relevant information for constructing a correct response (

Effects of timing of formative feedback in computer‐assisted learning environments

“…During the testing phase, students completed online confidence judgments on their performance to each of the questions utilizing a response certitude scale similar to that one used by Kealy and Ritzhaupt (2010). This scale aimed at gathering students' certitude of response on both the first and/or second attempt to answer a given question.…”

On the utility of pictorial feedback in computer-based learning environments

“…Hence, we were interested in validating this hypothesis by collecting assessment certitude ratings (Kealy & Ritzhaupt, 2010) for each constructed response and examining the degree of correlation between these measures and the correctness of responses as well as the amount of time spent studying the feedback provided after a response.…”

Evaluation of Knowla

“…The proliferation of online learning courses represents a new challenge for finding assessment tools that can extend beyond traditional multiple-choice questions and are also able to be automatically scored (Attali, 2013; Jorge-Botana, Luzón, Gómez-Veiga, & Martín-Cordero, 2015; Kealy & Ritzhaupt, 2010). This study evaluates one such strategy, a concept called Knowledge Assembly or Knowla, proposed and designed by Braude.…”