Formative assessment and increased

student involvement increases grades

in Biology

Martin Granbom

Katedralskolan, Lund

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Tests in chronological order

Curriculum criterion

“Students should have knowledge about gene technological methods, practical applications and be able to discuss possibilities and risks from an ethical perspective”

Inspired by Grant & Wiggins, 1998. Educative assessment

Freccero, Hortlund & Posette, 2006. Bedömning av kvalitativkunskap

The goal for you is to be ableto take a stand in the gene

technology issue!

Examples of areas of interest

• What is gene therapy?

• Cloning

• Are genetically modified organisms bad food?

• Can you design a baby?

• Will gene technology be the solution to world

famine?

Working methods

• Teacher led lectures

• Laborations

• Study visits

• Discussions in different group constallations

• Invite guest lecturers

• Film

• Webb discussions (via learning platform)

• Self guided studies

Examination form

• Written test

• Individual essay

• Group project

• Individual Power point account

• Oral test (individual/group)

• Debate

What to know?

Oral examination

• 4-5 students for appr. 30 minutes

• Group construction

• Prepared questions and ”entries”

• Took notes in the rubric and filmed (some)

• Coassessment of films

• Summatively assessed

Analysis

Kruskal-Wallis test:

p<0.001

Why?

• Explicit expectations, constructed by students

themselves

• Engaged

• Group pressure

• Repeated revisions

• Different perspectives

BUT…

Support in literature

Natriello, G. 1987. The Impact of Evaluation Processes on Students. EducationalPsychologist, 22(2), 155–175.

Wiliam, D. 2011. What is assessment for learning? Studies in Educational Evaluation, 37(1),3-14.

Hattie, J., & Timperley, H. 2007. The Power of Feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77(1), 81–112.

Lam, C. F., Derue, D. S., Karam, E. P. & Hollenbeck, J. R. 2011. The impact of feedback frequency on learning and task performance: Challenging the "More is better" Assumption.Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 116(2), 217-228.

Huxham, M. et al. 2012. Oral vs. written assessments: A test of student performance. Assessment and evaluation in higher education, 37(1):125-136.

Alternative hypotheses

• Students get higher grades in oral tests?

• Gene technology is more interesting?

• The teacher acted differently?

Difficult to separate the effect of teacher,

examination form and interest.

Qualitative study

Focus group interviews

• Two groups of 5-7 ex-students

• Students graduated one year ago

• Focus groups from former school classes

• Approximately 90 minutes

• Moderator and active observer

Research question

How is the observed increased result

explained by students?

What do you remember about the gene technology

teaching sequence?

1. Laboration with glowing bacteria

2. GMO

3. Ethical discussions

4. Films about GMO maize cookies

5. PCR

6. Web resources (www.forskning.se)

7. Oral test

8. Self studies

Analysis

• Content analysis - Kvale (1997) and Patton

(2002).

• Interviews were recorded and transcribed

• Interviews were coded

• Codes grouped in predefined categories

• Atlas.ti

Defining aim and criteria

“well… if we, personally, framed the assessment

criteria, then we had needed to have been

thinking a bit – yes, about what we wanted to

learn, as you said. We had been discussing what

we wanted… Then it gets much more fun, I

mean that it becomes easier as well, compared to

receiving already determined criteria of what we

are supposed to learn”.

Variation

“…and then there was huge variation. It wasn’t

like there was one way of learning and that was

it, but it was just like with Gene technology that

we then were allowed to choose what we wanted

to deepen into. About framing the goals and all

that, maybe, isn’t so, isn’t that important

compared to that we were allowed to choose”

Conclusions and implications

• Students experience variation as the most

important factor.

• Student involvement ≠ high grades

• Teachers need to find different ways to get

variation in teaching.

• Writing clear and specific aims