Research Problem • Part of learning is learning from mistakes, but there is no

“safe” mechanism for attempt->failure->reattempt built into most courses where grades depend heavily on a small number of exams.

• Students have no incentive to revisit “failed” material from midterm exams until studying for the final exam.

• Students get discouraged when faced with failures on midterm exams.

Research QuestionWill offering students multiple tries on low-stakes assessments improve student perception of learning gains and mastery of learning objectives?

Research MethodsMy primary research methods include:

• Give online, low-stakes quizzes after each content module. • Offer optional “re-quiz” opportunities to give students additional

chances to master failed objectives and improve grades. Re-quizzes will not include all objectives.

How will I collect these data?

• Mastery of learning objectives will be measured based on performance on final exam.

• Final exam questions will be coded based on learning objectives. • Survey instrument to collect student attitudes and approaches to

repeat quizzes

My strategy to analyze these data will be:

• Use ANOVA followed by post-hoc comparison to compare final exam scores from concepts not quizzed, concepts quizzed once, and concepts covered on re-quizzes.

• Compare average number of quiz attempts for final letter grade and/or final exam grade

• Code student responses to repeat quiz survey instrument.

Triangulate data

Compare final exam question scores on

• Un-quizzed objectives• Quizzed objectives• Re-quizzed objectives

Compare number of quiz attempts for A, B, C, D, F students

Student survey regarding quiz practices over course of semester

Alignment of Research Question and Methods

Question

Will offering students multiple tries on low-stakes assessments

improve student perception of learning gains

and mastery of learning objectives?

Method

• Offer re-quizzes on select learning objectives

• Quantitate final exam performance on each learning objective

• Compare number of attempts with final grade

• Student surveys to explain quiz practices