Formative assessments using text messages to develop students’ ability to provide causal reasoning in general chemistry

Abstract

Formative assessment is critical in providing students the opportunity to self-assess their content knowledge and providing data to inform instructional decisions. It also provides students with information about course expectations. If, as called for in numerous science instruction reform efforts, we expect students to be able to apply their chemistry knowledge to analyze data and construct coherent explanations, then not only must summative assessments include items that require this of students, but students must also be provided with frequent and ongoing opportunities to individually practice this difficult task and receive feedback. Although online homework systems can be quite effective at providing students with feedback regarding their mastery of basic skills, it is typically less useful in providing meaningful feedback on constructed student explanations. This study examined the impact of providing students with frequent out-of-class formative assessment activities initiated by text messages. Student responses were then used to facilitate in-class instruction. Increased student participation in these formative assessment tasks correlated positively with success on exams even after accounting for student prior knowledge. There was also evidence that students increased their ability to construct complete explanation over the course of the semester. All results were consistent across two different institutions and three instructors.

Out-of-Class Assessment Activities for Feedback in a General, Organic, and Biochemistry Course

“…Google Docs has been previously used for electronic notebooks and for collaborative learning in laboratory courses . Herrington and Sweeder reported examples of the use of a formative assessment activity nicknamed the Remind Assessment System using Google Forms and text messages. , Daily Feedback began on February 17 as a request that I made to students to write the topics or concepts that they understood, topics or concepts that they thought they could master with practice, and the topics or concepts that they did not grasp, on a sheet of paper. Students subsequently submitted this sheet of paper to me at the end of each class.…”

ChemSims: using simulations and screencasts to help students develop particle-level understanding of equilibrium in an online environment before and during COVID

“…Although we could keep most of the questions nearly identical in this different format, one of the pretest and follow-up questions (Question 3 in Table 1) had to be modified. Since collecting images of drawings online had resulted in lower levels of participation in other studies (Sweeder and Herrington, 2020), we modified the question to have students select which graph illustrated how the concentrations of species would change over time, and then provide an explanation as to why they chose that graph. The multiple-choice options were derived from the most commonly drawn student responses for the paper and pencil version of the assessment.…”