Students’ motives for using online formative assessments when preparing for summative assessments

Figures & data

Table

Practice points

Student motives for using OFAs are collecting feed up, feed back, and feed forward Not all students student use OFAs Student motives for not using OFAs can be teacher-, student-, and mode-related When designing OFAs, constructive alignment should be borne in mind

Table 1.  Questions of the first student questionnaire

Completed online formative assessment	Scale
1. What were your main reasons for completing OFA 1/OFA 2?	Short answer
2. Completing OFA 1/OFA 2 had an added value in preparing for the summative assessment.	5 point scale (agree – disagree)
If agree: What was the added value?	Short answer
Not completed online formative assessment
3. What were your main reasons for not completing OFA 1/OFA 2?	Short answer
General
4a. Are you planning on completing OFA 3?	Yes/No
4b. What are your main reasons for this?	Short answer

Table 2.  Final coding scheme for reasons for completing and not completing OFA

Reasons for completing online formative assessment

1. Checking whether I studied sufficiently

2. Repeating and rehearsing the course material

3. Getting insight into the form and content of the summative assessment (including being prepared for the possible use of the same test items)

4. Discovering gaps in my knowledge and skills

5. Understanding what elements of the course material are important

6. Having a positive/negative experience with the previous formative/summative assessment

7. Other

Reasons for not completing online formative assessment

1. Having too little time/completing the online formative assessments takes too much time

2. Having completed the test items below the micro lectures already

3. Already knowing the course material well enough

4. Finding the online formative assessment insufficiently representative of the summative assessment

5. Experiencing technical problems

6. Preferring to learn from other sources

7. Forgetting the possibility of making the online formative assessment

8. Other

Table 3.  Means and SDs for reasons for completing OFAs and the added value in terms of means and standard deviations (N = 104)

Reasons	To complete OFA 3 (retrospect)	For added value of OFA 3 (retrospect)	To complete OFAs before the final test (prospect)
Checking whether I had studied sufficiently	4.3 (0.7)	4.0 (0.6)	4.1 (0.7)
Repeating and rehearsing the course material	4.3 (0.6)	4.1 (0.6)	4.4 (0.6)
Getting insight into the form and content of the summative assessment	4.0 (0.8)	3.6 (0.9)	3.6 (1.1)
Discovering gaps in my knowledge and skills	4.2 (0.8)	3.9 (0.9)	4.1 (0.8)
Understanding what elements of the course material are important	3.6 (1.1)	3.5 (0.9)	3.6 (3.6)
Having a positive/negative experience with the previous formative/summative assessment	3.5 (1.0)	–	3.7 (1.0)

Table 4.  Factor loadings of exploratory factor analyses on items concerning reasons for completing OFAs and the added value of OFAs with ML estimations and Oblimin rotation

	Factor
	1	2	3
I have completed the online formative assessment urinary system for …
Checking whether I studied sufficiently	0.09	0.46	0.48
Repeating and rehearsing the course material	0.13	0.52	0.27
Getting insight into the form and content of the summative assessment	0.22	0.44	0.10
Discovering gaps in my knowledge and skills	0.34	0.91	0.24
Understanding what elements of the course material are important	0.83	0.40	0.12
Having a positive/negative experience with the previous formative/summative Assessment	0.13	0.25	0.82
The online formative assessment urinary system had added value, because then I could …
Check whether I had studied sufficiently	0.23	0.29	0.45
Repeat and rehearse the course material	0.37	0.56	0.30
Get insight into the form and content of the summative assessment	0.56	0.24	0.33
Discover gaps in my knowledge and skills	0.58	0.62	0.19
Understand what elements of the course material are important	0.94	0.33	0.25
I will complete (at least one) online formative assessment, because …
Then I can check whether I had studied sufficiently	0.42	0.33	0.53
Then I can repeat and rehearse the course material	0.18	0.56	0.40
Then I can get insight into the form and content of the summative assessment	0.66	0.41	0.30
Then I can discover gaps in my knowledge and skills	0.52	0.66	0.38
Then I can understand what elements of the course material are important	0.88	0.32	0.26
I had a positive/negative experience with the previous formative/summative assessment	0.51	0.37	0.83

Table 5.  Medians for reasons for not completing OFAs in terms of means and standard deviations (N = 29; N = 9)

Reasons	Not to complete the OFA kidney (retrospect)	Not to complete OFAs preparing for the final test (prospect)
Having too little time/making the OFA takes too much time	4	2
Having completed the test items below the micro lectures already	4	2
Already knowing the course material well enough	2	2
Finding the OFA insufficiently representative of the summative assessment	2	3
Experiencing technical problems	1	1
Preferring to learn from other sources	3	2