Notes

Title: Effectiveness of Formative assessment in higher education in online learning environment
Introduction
Formative assessments have been proven useful for identifying the gaps in teaching-learning strategies adopted by teachers during on-going lessons. It does so by monitoring student learning, identifying concepts that students are struggling to understand, making adjustments accordingly and thereby improving the performance and increasing motivation of students in summative assessments through various formative assessment strategies and valuable feedback given by the teachers.
Formative assessment remains an effective method for improving teaching-learning but is still not recognized as a mandatory assessment tool as compared to summative assessments due to lack of knowledge about its implementation and teacher-training.
In this research, the study will focus on the effect of formative assessments in the academic achievement of students. It will also study the role of motivation on the outcome of academic achievement.
Conceptual framework
Formative assessment:
Formative assessment is an assessment done during the instructional process for the purpose of improving teaching or learning (Black and William, 2003).

Teachers and schools can use formative assessment to identify student understanding, clarify what comes next in their learning, trigger and become part of an effective system of intervention for struggling students, inform and improve the instructional practice of individual teachers or teams, help students track their own progress toward attainment of standards, motivate students by building confidence in themselves as learners, fuel continuous improvement processes across faculties, and, thus, drive a school's transformation (Stiggins & DuFour, 2009).

Crossing the three processes with the different agents (teacher, peer, learner) suggests the framework (from Wiliam & Thompson, 2007), indicating that formative assessment can be conceptualized as consisting of five key strategies:
Clarifying and sharing learning intentions and criteria for success
Engineering effective classroom discussions and other learning tasks that elicit evidence of student understanding; The importance of “success criteria” and “learning intentions” was emphasised by Clarke (2001).
Providing feedback that moves learners forward
Activating students as instructional resources for one another
Activating students as the owners of their own learning.
Online formative assessment is the application of formative assessment within learning online and blended settings where the teacher and learners are separated by time and/or space and where a substantial proportion of learning/teaching activities are conducted through web-based ICT (J.W. Gikandi, D. Morrow, N.E. Davis, 2011).
Online learning environment: A learning environment with no physical location and in which the instructors and students are separated by space that allows sharing of educational materials with the learners via the web.



Review of related searches
Formative assessment and student achievement
(Martin Ashdale, 2020) This study had studied the effect of a specific formative assessment strategy and determined whether there is significant evidence that this strategy will help to improve student achievement. Progress trackers were used as the strategy which included rating of daily objectives and five response questions. The study showed that there was no significant difference between the treatment and control group based on the means of a pretest and posttest score. The study suggested some changes to be made to the progress tracker and methods by which it is administered in order to determine if it is viable in some form or if there are more effective formative assessments available.
(Matilda, U. Orheruata, Helen, A. Oyakhirome, 2019) investigated the effect of formative classroom assessment on students’ achievement in junior secondary school Basic science. Basic Science Achievement Test (BSAT) was used for the pre-test and post–test. Formative classroom assessment had effect on the students’ academic achievement in favour of the experimental group; formative classroom assessment was also found to improve the students’ academic achievement as observed in the difference between pre-test and post-test in favour of the post-test; and no significant difference in the scores of male and female exposed to the formative classroom assessment.
(Hwang and Change, 2011) and (Sheard and Chambers, 2014) In studies completed by them it was shown that the use of formative assessment in technology lead to significant increases in achievement. Both studies had students use a technology-based learning platform to complete a task and answer questions.

Digital formative assessment tools and student motivation
(Julien Arief Wicaksono, Rimbi Budi Setiarini, Osamu Ikeda, Adriadi Novawan, 2020) This study investigated the quality of relationships among the use of H5P in teaching English, students’ motivation and students’ achievement in English mastery through qualitative research. The findings show that the use of H5p in teaching English had a relatively significant impact on students’ motivation that can influence the effectiveness of their English skills development.
(Yassine benhadj, Mohammad El Messaoudi, Abdelhamid Nfissi, 2019) investigated the impact of Kahoot! on engagement, motivation, learning outcomes and attitude towards ICT integration in future learning experiences. The study met the goals on achieving improved levels of achievement, motivation, engagement and more satisfaction and readiness to deploy ICT tools in future learning experiences.
H5P grabs my students’ attention in two ways: First, the video draws their attention, and the interactions keep them on task, as well as help them self-assess, or to further their knowledge. Second, my students learn to use H5P as a presentation tool for themselves, and subsequently demonstrate competence via interactive projects. H5P gives students opportunities to self-reflect and self-assess. It provides ambitious students with cyber-conduits to access more information (V. Sartor, 2018).
Student motivation and self-regulation
(Beau Simon, 2019) The study focused on the students self-regulatory practices and thereby wanted to find if formative assessment improves their motivation by enhancing self-regulation. The researcher engaged in formative assessment strategies paired with formative feedback aimed at improving student understanding of concepts and ideas in social studies. Based on the research, formative assessment, paired with formative feedback, can give students the motivation to aid their learning, and help them learn rather than memorize. e. Based on the data from the study, there was no statistical significance in either student motivation or self-regulation through the use of formative assessment.

Need of study
Education has seen a great shift from face-to-face to online in recent times. With changes in settings came implementation of existing methodologies which otherwise happened offline to a great extent. There was a need felt to investigate the impact of assessments, particularly formative assessments and its implications in an online learning environment. Looking at various strategies that can be implemented for integration of formative assessments in an online learning environment, there felt a need for employing a fun but robust tool that could be used as formative assessment that can not only engage the students and give immediate but constructive feedback, but also improve learning outcomes.
Title: Effectiveness of Formative assessment in higher education in online learning environment
Operational definitions
Formative assessment: Assessments conducted during the on-going learning process in order to modify teaching-learning activities to improve student learning.
Online learning environment: In this research, implementation of formative assessment will be done via H5P which is integrated in the Moodle LMS.
Academic achievement: Students’ achievement in the subject Botany.
Higher education: Colleges or Institutions with graduate or undergraduate programs.
Objectives and hypothesis

Objectives
Hypothesis
To develop formative assessment activities through H5P
NA
To study the effect of formative assessment on students’ academic performance
There will be a significant difference in the academic performance of students (directional)
To study the effect of formative assessment on students’ motivation
There will be no significant difference in the level of motivation (null)


Variables
Independent: Formative Assessment
Dependent: Academic achievement, Student motivation
Confounding: Students interest towards the subject, students level of participation, students attitude towards the type of formative assessment.

Assumption:

Participants have basic computer/ laptop skills and know how to use a computer/ laptop
Participants have access to the internet for attending online classes and attempting formative assessment online
Participants have basic English Competency Skills

Scope and Limitations:

Limited only to students of Bachelors of Science.
This study can be done with participants of various age groups.
There is the scope of conducting this study for any academic subject such as English, History, Mathematics, etc.


Research methodology

Research method chosen:
Quantitative method- Quasi experimental design- Non randomized control group Pre-test Post-test quasi experimental design
Population: FY BSc students
Size and Sampling: Purposive sampling: 26-30 students


visual design of experimental treatment:



Group
Pre-test
Treatment
Post-test
N
Experimental
T1
X
T2
N
Control
T1
-
T2





Instrument/s and / or technique/s for data collection
Tools for data collection

Research Questions / Objectives
Hypotheses
Variables involved
Data Collection Tools/ techniques to measure variable
To develop formative assessment activities through H5P
-
-
-
To study the effect of formative assessment on students’ academic performance
There will be a significant difference in the academic performance of students
Achievement
Pre-test and Post Test
To study the effect of formative assessment on students’ motivation
There will be no significant difference in the level of motivation
Motivation
Motivation Scale (5-point Likert scale)