Investigating the relationship between optional quizzes and final exam performance in a fully asynchronous online calculus module

ABSTRACT

Most teachers of mathematics think that regular practice is essential for success. In face-to-face instruction settings, regular practice requires doing homework, which has to provide students with feedback in order to be useful. Online homework allows teachers to assume the workload involved in providing feedback to a large number of students enrolled in higher education. Several studies have established an association between completing online homework quizzes and learning achievement in face-to-face environments. In a fully asynchronous online environment, where students have to work autonomously, offering them a set of optional interactive quizzes with automated feedback may be a good teaching strategy to support them in their learning process. Within this framework, this paper investigates the relationship between optional quizzes and final exam performance in a calculus module. By means of multiple linear regression, this study found that an association exists between the learning achievement measured by final exam marks and participation in online quizzes together with the learning achieved through completion of these quizzes.

KEYWORDS:

• Learning achievement
• online mathematics
• online homework quizzes
• automated feedback
• e-assessment
• asynchronous online environment

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Dr. Ramon Masià, Dr. Laura Calvet, Dr. Miquel Ferrer and Mr. Paul Garbutt for their valuable contributions in helping to improve this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Josep Figueroa-Cañas received the degree in physics from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain in 1988. He is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in e-Learning with the Open University of Catalonia (UOC).

Teresa Sancho-Vinuesa received the degree in mathematics from Universitat de Barcelona, Spain, in 1990, and the Ph.D. degree in electronic engineering from the Universitat Ramon Llull, Spain, in 1995. From 1990 to 1996 she taught numerical analysis and theory of probabilities and stochastic processes with the La Salle School of Engineering, where she coordinated a Research Group on numerical methods to solve problems in fluid mechanics and electromagnetism for six years. She was a member with the pedagogical and editorial team, Department of Didactic Material, Enciclopedia Catalana SA, Barcelona. She was with the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) in 1998, where she has been involved in several positions: academic coordinator of the Ph.D. program with Information and Knowledge Society, and research director and vice-rector in research and innovation. She is currently a senior lecturer in mathematics with the UOC, where she teaches mathematics for engineers and is also the head of the Learning Analytics for Innovation and Knowledge Application in Higher Education (LAIKA) group. Although since her entry to the UOC she has been involved in topics related to higher education and internet, she concentrates her activity research in the use of learning analytics for the improvement of the education and learning on line, in particular, in the processes of evaluation and feedback.

Notes

1 With the expression “statistically significant” we mean that, regarding the test to which the expression is referring, we reject the test null hypothesis (H₀), considering the significance level (α). The criterion for rejecting H₀ has been the obtaining of a p-value that is lower than the significance level (α).

2 Mean_Real_Test_Marks_01 is the former Mean_Real_Test_Marks rescaled in the interval [0,1].