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Within the field of education, there has been an increasing recognition of the importance of formative assessment and of structural knowledge. In an effort to fill needs in each of these areas, this article describes an innovative feedback strategy intended to improve students' structural knowledge. Twenty-four high school physics students were assessed using Pathfinder networks (PFnets) for their structural knowledge of a just-completed unit on work, energy, and power. As feedback, students were shown both their PFnet and a referent PFnet and were asked to reflect on the differences. In addition, misconceptions regarding the concept of work were identified in their PFnets and used to present individualized remedial exercises to each student. Following this feedback/remediation session, students' structural knowledge was again assessed. Results indicate that overall structural knowledge improved following feedback/remediation. In addition, structural knowledge of the concept work improved more than a control concept, indicating that feedback plus remediation had a larger effect than just feedback. We discuss the innovative features of the feedback strategy employed: the novel application of a computer-based assessment tool to provide graphical feedback aimed at improving structural knowledge.Within the field of education, there has been increasing recognition of the importance of formative assessment. The Council of Chief State School Officers defined 7

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The purpose of this study was to identify the effect of teaching practices and student motivation on student achievement in mathematics. Two principal component analyses (PCA) were conducted. The first PCA was conducted to cluster 22 items related to teaching practices, in which the items were selected from a teacher questionnaire. The second PCA was conducted to cluster 11 items related to student motivation, in which the items were selected from a student questionnaire. Results from the first PCA revealed that the extraction of four components was found to be related to several frameworks found in the literature on teaching strategies. For the second PCA, two components were extracted which were related to student motivation. These extracted components were then used as two sets of independent variables in a hierarchical regression analysis in order to study their impact on student achievement in mathematics. The study revealed that four teaching practice components and the two student motivation components were significantly related to student academic achievement in mathematics on the large-scale assessment.

L’étude de nature interprétative rapportée dans cet article a pour but d’examiner les perceptions des membres du personnel enseignant à l’égard de la pratique de pondération d’une partie ou de l’ensemble des résultats des élèves à l’épreuve provinciale annuelle à leurs résultats de fin de cours en mathématiques 9e année. En réponse à certains items du questionnaire contextuel à l’intention du personnel enseignant, administré en 2009-2012, 90% des enseignants des écoles de langue française de l’Ontario disent que cette pratique motive les élèves à prendre le test au sérieux. Leurs commentaires reflètent des préoccupations vis-à-vis des caractéristiques et comportements de l’élève et des conditions et caractéristiques du test, comme son enjeu et la taille de la pondération. Les constats rapportés rejoignent ceux proposés par Eklöf (2010) dans son modèle de motivation des élèves en situation d’évaluations à grande échelle.