Use of Feedback-Oriented Online Exercises to Help Physiology Students Construct Well-Organized Answers to Short-Answer Questions

Carnegie, Jacqueline A.

doi:10.1187/cbe.14-08-0132

Cited by 15 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…The provision of regularly-spaced formative examinations to these students prior to their summative exams may also have allowed them to be well prepared for assessment. Having opportunities to practice retrieving information pertaining to course content when studying is an active study approach that has been suggested to promote learning and long-term retention more effectively than passive processes such as reading the textbook and course notes (Carnegie, 2015;Karpicke, Butler, & Roediger III, 2009;Orr & Foster, 2013;Roediger & Karpicke, 2006). That being said, correct answer position and the possible development of a pattern could become important when a student does not know the correct answer and has resorted to guessing (Attali & Bar-Hillel, 2003).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does Correct Answer Distribution Influence Student Choices When Writing Multiple Choice Examinations?

Carnegie

2017

cjsotl-rcacea

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Summative evaluation for large classes of first- and second-year undergraduate courses often involves the use of multiple choice question (MCQ) exams in order to provide timely feedback. Several versions of those exams are often prepared via computer-based question scrambling in an effort to deter cheating. An important parameter to consider when preparing multiple exam versions is that they must be equivalent in their assessment of student knowledge. This project investigated a possible influence of correct answer organization on student answer selection when writing multiple versions of MCQ exams. The specific question asked was whether the existence of a series of four to five consecutive MCQs in which the same letter represented the correct answer had a detrimental influence on a student’s ability to continue to select the correct answer as he/she moved through that series. Student outcomes from such exams were compared with results from exams with identical questions but which did not contain such series. These findings were supplemented by student survey data in which students self-assessed the extent to which they paid attention to the distribution of correct answer choices when writing summative exams, both during their initial answer selection and when transferring their answer letters to the Scantron sheet for correction. Despite the fact that more than half of survey respondents indicated that they do make note of answer patterning during exams and that a series of four to five questions with the same letter for the correct answer would encourage many of them to take a second look at their answer choice, the results pertaining to student outcomes suggest that MCQ randomization, even when it does result in short serial arrays of letter-specific correct answers, does not constitute a distraction capable of adversely influencing student performance. Dans les très grandes classes de cours de première et deuxième années, l’évaluation sommative se déroule souvent par le biais d’examens comportant des questions à choix multiples afin de pouvoir donner rapidement les résultats aux étudiants. Plusieurs versions de ces examens sont souvent préparées et les questions sont brouillées par ordinateur pour dissuader la tricherie. Lors de la préparation de plusieurs versions d’un examen à choix multiples, l’un des paramètres importants à prendre en considération est que chaque version doit être semblable aux autres pour évaluer équitablement les connaissances des étudiants. Ce projet a pour but d’examiner l’influence possible de l’organisation des réponses correctes sur le choix des réponses des étudiants lors de la préparation de plusieurs versions d’un examen à choix multiples. La question spécifique qui a été posée était de savoir si l’existence d’une série de quatre ou cinq questions à choix multiples consécutives pour lesquelles la même lettre représentait la bonne réponse pouvait avoir une influence préjudiciable sur l’aptitude des étudiants à continuer à choisir la bonne réponse alors qu’ils progressent d’une question à l’autre dans la même série. Les résultats des étudiants qui passent de tels examens ont été comparés aux résultats obtenus quand les étudiants passent des examens dont les questions sont les mêmes mais qui ne comportent pas de telles séries. Ces résultats ont été enrichis par les réponses à une enquête auprès des étudiants pour laquelle les étudiants ont été auto-évalués concernant la question de savoir s’ils avaient remarqué la répartition des réponses correctes parmi les choix multiples quand ils passaient des examens sommatifs, à la fois au départ, quand ils choisissaient leurs réponses, et ensuite quand ils transféraient les lettres correspondant à leurs réponses sur la feuille Scanton pour la correction. Malgré le fait que plus de la moitié des répondants aient indiqué qu’ils ne font pas attention à la structuration des réponses pendant l’examen et qu’une série de quatre ou cinq questions ayant la même lettre pour la bonne réponse pourrait encourager beaucoup d’entre eux à regarder de plus près leur choix de réponse, la conclusion concernant les résultats obtenus par les étudiants suggère que la randomisation des questions à choix multiples, même quand elle aboutit à des séries de réponses correctes identifiées par la même lettre, ne constitue pas une distraction capable d’influencer négativement le rendement des étudiants.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does Correct Answer Distribution Influence Student Choices When Writing Multiple Choice Examinations?

Carnegie

2017

cjsotl-rcacea

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“…Frequent homework can be an opportunity to give students that practice. Studies suggest that assigning homework in college biology classes can increase performance ( Lefcort and Eiger, 2003 ; Orr and Foster, 2013 ; Carnegie, 2015 ). Indeed, frequent, active homework that consists of writing or problem solving is an important part of the high or moderate course structure that has been shown to reduce achievement gaps for students from underrepresented groups and to improve learning for all students ( Freeman et al.…”

Section: How Common Teaching Techniques May Affect the Neurobiology Omentioning

confidence: 99%

Teaching as Brain Changing: Exploring Connections between Neuroscience and Innovative Teaching

Owens

Tanner

2017

LSE

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“…The testing effect has been applied to classroom contexts across the disciplines of psychology (Leeming, 2002; Trumbo et al , 2016), statistics (Lyle and Crawford, 2011), medicine (Larsen et al , 2009; Messineo et al , 2015), and biology (Orr and Foster, 2013; Carnegie, 2015). In an introductory biology classroom, Orr and Foster (2013) studied the use of low-stakes (10% of course grade) quizzes and found that students who participated in 100% of the available quizzes scored better on course exams than students who participated in 0% of the quizzes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Participation in Voluntary Re-quizzing Is Predictive of Increased Performance on Cumulative Assessments in Introductory Biology

Walck-Shannon

Cahill

McDaniel

et al. 2019

LSE

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Low-stakes testing, or quizzing, is a formative assessment tool often used to structure course work. After students complete a quiz, instructors commonly encourage them to use those quizzes again to retest themselves near exam time (i.e., delayed re-quizzing). In this study, we examine student use of online, ungraded practice quizzes that are reopened near exam time after a first graded attempt 1–3 weeks prior. We find that, when controlling for preparation (performance in a previous science, technology, engineering, and mathematics [STEM] course and incoming biology knowledge), re-quizzing predicts better performance on two cumulative exams in introductory biology: a course posttest and final exam. Additionally, we describe a preliminary finding that, for the final exam, but not the posttest, re-quizzing benefits students with lower performance in a previous STEM course more than their higher-performing peers. But unfortunately, these struggling students are also less likely to participate in re-quizzing. Together, these data suggest that a common practice, reopening quizzes for practice near exam time, can effectively benefit student performance. This study adds to a growing body of literature that suggests quizzing can be used as both an assessment tool and a learning tool by showing that the “testing effect” extends to delayed re-quizzing within the classroom.

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Use of Feedback-Oriented Online Exercises to Help Physiology Students Construct Well-Organized Answers to Short-Answer Questions

Cited by 15 publications

References 31 publications

Does Correct Answer Distribution Influence Student Choices When Writing Multiple Choice Examinations?

Does Correct Answer Distribution Influence Student Choices When Writing Multiple Choice Examinations?

Teaching as Brain Changing: Exploring Connections between Neuroscience and Innovative Teaching

Participation in Voluntary Re-quizzing Is Predictive of Increased Performance on Cumulative Assessments in Introductory Biology

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