Individual student success is influenced by the educational environment and student characteristics. One adaptation of the educational environment to improve student success is the introduction of continuous, or in-course, assessment. Previous research already identified several student characteristics that are related to student success as measured by student achievement, like previous achievements, motivation, self-efficacy and gender. The two facets are investigated in a group of first-year undergraduate Law students in the Netherlands, by examining the relationship of different types of continuous assessment and student characteristics with academic achievement. A questionnaire, measuring demographic information, selfregulation and motivational constructs, was completed by 94 students and their grades were requested from the student administration. Repeated measures ANCOVAs with assessment type as the within-subject factor identified that student achievement is not dependent on the type of continuous assessment. Students with higher high-school GPAs got higher scores across assessment types. Male students performed worse than their female peers in courses without continuous assessment, but in courses using any type of continuous assessment, this gender difference disappeared. Intrinsic motivation was a negative predictor of achievement in courses using writing assignments and mandatory homework assignments. Results from the current study indicate that continuous assessment may be a potent measure to improve male students' success by closing the gender achievement gap, and that students with high levels of intrinsic motivation do not benefit from continuous assessment.

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a iclon, leiden university graduate school of teaching, leiden university, leiden, the netherlands; b institute of Psychology, leiden university, leiden, the netherlands ABSTRACT In-course assessment, such as midterms, quizzes or presentations, is often an integral part of higher education courses. These so-called intermediate assessments influence students' final grades. The current review investigates which characteristics of intermediate assessment relate to these grades. In total, 88 articles were reviewed that examined the relationship between intermediate assessment and student grades. Four main characteristics were identified: the use of feedback, whether the assessment is mandatory, who is the assessor, and the reward students get for participating. Results indicate that corrective feedback leads to the most positive results, but elaborate feedback may benefit lower achieving groups. No difference in results was found for mandatory versus voluntary intermediate assessments.Peer assessment seemed to be beneficial, and rewarding students with course credit improves grades more than other rewards. Three scenarios are presented on how teachers can combine the different characteristics to optimise their intermediate assessment.

Peer feedback can be a tool to help higher education students develop presentation skills. This process can be supported by using online tools that enable peers to provide feedback annotated to specific moments in the presentation. The current paper investigated whether providing and receiving peer feedback using an online tool was related to improvement in students' presentation skills, whether students provided different peer feedback in comments and annotations, and whether student characteristics played a role in students' presentation skill improvement. Results from 56 second-year undergraduate Education and Child Studies students indicate that providing and receiving feedback did not relate to students' improvement in presentation skill, and that high ability students showed less improvement in presentation skills than medium and low ability students did.

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