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Brief Introducation to the Project
Abstract
GE foundation course is an important course aiming at cultivating undergraduates’ generic skills for their future life and work. The efficiency of the course depends on how much the students engage in the course and how well they learn. formative e-assessment (FEA) can enhance undergraduates’ learning engagement and outcomes due to the nature of formative assessment and affordance of technology. This project aimed to enhance freshmen’s learning engagement and outcomes in General Education (GE) Foundation course by incorporating FEA tasks into tutorial process. A teacher guide on FEA task design and implementation and cases of using FEA tasks were developed and refined during the project. A quasi-experiment design was utilized to collect data from at least 12 tutorial groups of GE foundation course. The data were used to verify the effects of FEA on learning and provided insights for formulating an FEA framework as a reference for assessment innovation in general education at the tertiary level.
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Research Apporach
A quasi-experimental design will be utilized to collect data from at least 10 tutorial groups of the GE foundation course using the methods of survey, interviews and document analysis. The data will be used to evaluate the effects of FEA on learning and provide insights to formulate an FEA framework as a reference for assessment innovation in GE at the tertiary level.
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Results
226 first-year college students in10 experimental groups (2 groups in the pilot study) and 3 control group (1 group in the pilot study) taught by 5 teachers participated in this project. Methods for evaluation included interviews with participating teachers and students, survey, document analysis of students’ e-journals and log data.
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The survey shows that students in experimental group engaged more in their tutorials, demonstrated higher reflective and critical thinking level than control group. The differences between experimental and control group in terms of emotional engagement and critical thinking disposition were statistically significant. Analysis of students’ first and third e-journals reveals that there was no significant difference in improvement of reflective thinking but significant difference in the improvement of critical thinking.
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Analysis of teacher and student interviews shows that teachers and students were positive about the use of FEA tasks in GE foundation tutorials and acknowledged different FEA tasks enhanced their engagement and improve their critical thinking level. Teachers and students also encountered challenges in implementing FEA tasks including examination-oriented learning attitudes, low course learning motivation, time constraints, uncertainties, gauge of their investment of time and energy and etc.
Impact
Through this project, three types of FEA tasks were designed and implemented in 10 groups taught by 5 tutors. The experiences (including the advantages, challenges, solutions to the challenges, and suggestions for future implementation) of using FEA in the GE foundation course were synthesized. Three cases of implementing FEA tasks can be used as curriculum resources for tutorials. A website will be dedicated to disseminate these cases so that they can be accessed within and beyond the University. These crystalized experiences will constitute a guiding framework for designing and implementing FEA in the GE foundation course.
