Recommendations for Orchestration of Formative Assessment Sequences: A Data-Driven Approach

Abstract

Formative assessment aims to improve teaching and learning by providing teachers and students with feedback designed to help them to adapt their behavior. To face the increasing number of students in higher education and support this kind of activity, technology-enhanced formative assessment tools emerged. These tools generate data that can serve as a basis for improving the processes and services they provide. Based on literature and using a dataset gathered from the use of a formative assessment tool in higher education whose process, inspired by Mazur's Peer Instruction, consists in asking learners to answer a question before and after a confrontation with peers, we use learning analytics to provide evidence-based knowledge about formative assessment practices. Our results suggest that: (1) Benefits of formative assessment sequences increase when the proportion of correct answers is close to 50% during the first vote; (2) Benefits of formative assessment sequences increase when correct learners' rationales are better rated than incorrect learners' ones; (3) Peer ratings are consistent when correct learners are more confident than incorrect ones; (4) Self-rating is inconsistent in peer rating context; (5) The amount of peer ratings makes no significant difference in terms of sequences benefits. Based on these results, recommendations in formative assessment are discussed and a data-informed formative assessment process is inferred.

Design and implementation of an AI‐enabled visual report tool as formative assessment to promote learning achievement and self‐regulated learning: An experimental study

“…In this way, assessment is transformed into a tool to promote student success. The benefits of formative assessment are manifold (Andriamiseza et al., 2023; Lee et al., 2020; McCallum & Milner, 2021). Teachers can receive timely feedback on their teaching and use it to improve the teaching planning and provide compensatory education based on students' needs.…”

Designing a Revision System: An Exploratory Qualitative Study to Identify the Needs of French Teachers and Students

“…Information on the students was collected in interviews with the questionnaire in Table 4 and their profiles are summarised in Table 5. The original data in French are accessible in an Open Science Framework repository 4 , with the questionnaires, and full transcriptions of the interviews. T1 at ease neither at ease nor uncomfortable uncomfortable at ease T2 at ease at ease very uncomfortable neither at ease nor uncomfortable T4 at ease at ease at ease at ease T5 very at ease very at ease at ease at ease T6 at ease at ease neither at ease nor uncomfortable neither at ease nor uncomfortable T8 very at ease very at ease at ease at ease The non-functional, high-fidelity-looking prototype presented in Fig.…”

“…T1 at ease neither at ease nor uncomfortable uncomfortable at ease T2 at ease at ease very uncomfortable neither at ease nor uncomfortable T4 at ease at ease at ease at ease T5 very at ease very at ease at ease at ease T6 at ease at ease neither at ease nor uncomfortable neither at ease nor uncomfortable T8 very at ease very at ease at ease at ease The non-functional, high-fidelity-looking prototype presented in Fig. 1 was designed with the idea of offering content already worked on in the classroom through the use of the online tool Elaastic [4]. The prototype was first envisaged with a mobile-first approach, assuming that this was a suitable format for students.…”

“…This is why we decided to build a tool based on Elaastic 1 , formerly known as Tsaap-Notes. This tool has already been studied in ecological contexts in higher education [4,22] and in secondary education [3]. The recycling of classroom activities with Elaastic to semi-automatically generate review tests has been the subject of previous work [4,23].…”

“…This tool has already been studied in ecological contexts in higher education [4,22] and in secondary education [3]. The recycling of classroom activities with Elaastic to semi-automatically generate review tests has been the subject of previous work [4,23]. This work, conducted in higher education only, highlighted the widespread use of review tests by students but did not explore in detail the modalities of review.…”