Abstract
Research on impact in student achievement of online homework systems compared to traditional methods is ambivalent. Methodological issues in the study design, besides of technological diversity, can account for this uncertainty. Hypothesis This study aims to estimate the effect size of homework practice with exercises automatically provided by the ‘e-status’ platform, in students from five Engineering programs. Instead of comparing students using the platform with others not using it, we distributed the subject topics into two blocks, and created nine probability problems for each block. After that, the students were randomly assigned to one block and could solve the related exercises through e-status. Teachers and evaluators were masked to the assignation. Five weeks after the assignment, all students answered a written test with questions regarding all topics. The study outcome was the difference between both blocks’ scores obtained from the test. The two groups comprised 163 and 166 students. Of these, 103 and 107 respectively attended the test, while the remainder were imputed with 0. Those assigned to the first block obtained an average outcome of −1.85, while the average in the second block was −3.29 (95% confidence interval of difference, −2.46 to −0.43). During the period in which they had access to the platform before the test, the average total time spent solving problems was less than three hours. Our findings provide evidence that a small amount of active online work can positively impact on student performance.
Highlights
Computer-assisted assessment, often integrated within Computer-assisted instruction (CAI) systems, is widespread in undergraduate education
The process of random allocation began in the second week of classes and continued until the fifth week
All remaining students were randomly allocated upon completing registration, with particular attention being paid to maintaining balance within the intervention groups in regard to the above-mentioned factors
Summary
Computer-assisted assessment, often integrated within Computer-assisted instruction (CAI) systems, is widespread in undergraduate education. Online formative assessments cultivate the complex cognitive processes that today’s students need to succeed, according to McLaughlin and Yan (2017). These authors are in agreement with Clark (2012), who states “The development of selfregulation leads to higher achievement, drive and overall success”. Online means should be employed to a) share ‘exemplars’ of performance; b) post self-grading objective tests; c) disseminate group and individual feedback; and d) elicit feedback from students (Nicol and Milligan, 2006). Such processes require the appropriate conditions to succeed. Tasks could include applied problems and real-life data sets that students find reasonable and beneficial (Zetterqvist, 2017)
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