Abstract:
This study describes how the use of quality formative assessment
in a university course contributes to learning improvement. There
is an increased interest among educational researchers to
determine improvement of student learning that result from
assessment practices. Quality formative assessment includes
formative feedback, self-assessment and peer assessment. The
study followed a partially mixed sequential research design and
applied a quasi-experimental intervention that lasted for six
weeks where six educators applied quality formative assessment
on lessons of a general psychology course for intervention group
students (N= 191) in which the quantitative data were collected
by formative assessment questionnaire and achievement test
before and after the use of quality formative assessment. The
qualitative data were collected by focus group discussions with
the students. The students’ pretest and posttest achievement
scores were compared between the intervention (N =191) and the
comparison (N = 187) groups. The quantitative analysis used ttest and biserial correlation and attested the presence of
statistically significant difference between the two groups in the
posttest score. Moreover, effect size estimate (Cohen’s d) was
used to provide a validation on the variation between the two
groups on the posttest achievement score. Recommendations were
made to promoting the use of quality formative assessment aiming
at the improvement of student learning achievement in university
classes.
