Citing as an online learning support tool for student-generated assessment

ABSTRACT

While enabling students to refer to and build on peer-produced work (termed ‘citing’ herein) during content creation appears pedagogically promising, its associated learning effects remain under-studied. This research aimed at examining the effects of online citing of peer-generated assessment items during student test-construction on promoting learning and task performance. Additionally, any negative effects this approach may have on inducing cognitive and emotional burdens were examined. A pretest-posttest quasi-experimental research design was adopted, where two treatment groups were devised (i.e. the citing and no-citing groups). A group of fifth-graders from six classes participated in an 11-week study. Based on the results of the analysis of covariance, it was found that students in the citing group scored significantly higher than those in the no-citing group on academic achievement and question-generation performance. In addition, citing did not induce significantly higher cognitive load or learning anxiety as compared to the no-citing situation.

KEYWORDS:

• Citing
• learner-generated content
• learning effects
• online learning community
• student-generated assessment

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Instructional events or activities, including lectures, lab experiments, educational film-viewing, debates, group discussions and field trips (to nearby zoos, museums and government facilities), among others, arranged to support the attainment of a pre-determined instructional goal.

2. Also known as contributing student pedagogy.

3. As synthesised by Rosenshine et al. (1996) and further extended by Yu and Pan (2014), Stoyanova and Ellerton (1996) and Brown and Walter (2005), efficacious procedural scaffolding for SQG includes main ideas, signal words, question types, story grammar categories, target words/the answer is, generic question stems and what if/what if not.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan [108-2511-Q5 H-006-007-MY3, 111-2410-H-006-023-MY3].

Notes on contributors

Fu-Yun Yu

Fu-Yun Yu is Distinguished Professor at National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan. Her research interests are computer-supported collaborative learning, learner-centred pedagogies and innovative learning spaces design.

Ju-Ko Wei

Ju-Ko Wei graduated from the Institute of Education, National Cheng Kung University. Currently, she is a home-room teacher at Tainan Municipal Xi-Gang Elementary School, Taiwan.