Effects of Warm-Up Testing on Student Learning
Keywords:
assessment; diagnostic testing; undergraduate mathematics; warm-up testAbstract
The assessment of student preparedness for entry-level
university calculus has been of interest in recent years. Many
institutions have adopted diagnostic tests as a means to assess
foundational skills. We introduce a new testing-style, the Warm-Up
Test, which occurs very early in the semester and only tests concepts
from prerequisite courses that will be used to develop the new concepts
in the course to come. Despite the large size of the course, Warm-Up
Tests are not of a multiple choice format in order that rich feedback may
be given by graders. Warm-Up Tests may also make up part of a
student's grade, shifting weight from a high-stakes final exam. We
analyze the predictive ability of this new form of assessment upon
student performance on later assessments throughout the course, and
we discuss this analysis as well as potential biases and possible future
avenues of research.
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Copyright (c) 2017 Kimberly Mary Levere, Matthew Demers
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