The purpose of this study was to examine the ways by which student learning improvement and the
self-regulation of learning are possible through the use of quality formative assessment in the teaching
of a university course. In recent years, researchers in educational assessment are showing an increased
interest to the improvement of learning resulting from the use of formative assessment. Formative
assessment is generally recognised as an improvement oriented assessment. It is believed to result in
instructional effectiveness. Quality formative assessment includes formative feedback, self-assessment
and peer assessment. Previous studies show the contribution of each of these quality formative
assessments to learning improvement. However, less attention has been given to studying the combined
effect of quality formative assessments on learning improvement. On the other hand, the predominant
use of summative assessment remains a challenge to the improvement in instruction. Thus, the question
was to determine the extent to which the use of quality formative assessment improves learning. The
literature review in this study show an over reliance upon summative assessment in the context of
higher education classrooms. There is also recognition in that formative assessment improves learning
and enhances self-regulation. This study followed a mixed-methods research design of the type
partially mixed sequential and applied a quasi-experimental intervention, where the educators used
quality formative assessment on lessons with the students in the intervention group. The quasiexperimentation
was implemented with 378 (214 male and 164 female) first year students of three
universities enrolled for “General Psychology” course and six educators who were teaching the course.
The students in this study were taken from intact classes, because this is possible in quasi experimental
research. Data for the quantitative part of the study were generated using a structured questionnaire and
achievement tests. Interviews with the educators, focus group discussions with the students, and
classroom observations were used to generate data for the qualitative phase of study. The pretestposttest
scores as well as the students’ perceptions on self-regulating learning were compared between
the intervention (N =191) and the comparison (N = 187) groups. The quantitative analysis used
different inferential statistics, which proved the presence of statistically significant variations between
the intervention and comparison groups for the outcome measures (posttest achievement and perception
about self-regulating learning). Although the qualitative study showed the presence of positive
perceptions towards quality formative assessment, the practice was found to be inconsistent. Perhaps,
this may be because of the predominantly summative assessment tradition and the reluctance to use
quality formative assessment. Finally, recommendations were made to promote the use of quality
formative assessment aiming at the improvement and the self-regulation on learning. / Curriculum and Instructional Studies / D. Ed. (Didactics)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:unisa/oai:uir.unisa.ac.za:10500/21909 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Fisseha Mikre Weldmeskel |
| Contributors | Dreyer, J. M. (Johann M.) |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 1 online resource (xiii, 214, xxix leaves) : color illustrations, color map |
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