Abstract:

The Pandemic lockdown has presented an enormous challenge to both schools and students. The vast extension of time where students have been taught online with no “physical” contact between them and between them and their teachers resulted in a student’s disengagement that increased as much as the lockdown proceeds.

As a result of this challenge, several strategies have been implemented by Portuguese schools, with the aim of strengthening the connection of students to the school, their peers, and teachers, enhancing their participation in the school activities. The use of students’ assessment and particularly the “low stake quiz” (LSQ) with frequent feedback is one example of these strategies. This method has shown promising results (McDaniel et al., 2011) to improve students’ learning. Taking advantage of the fact that we have an ongoing pedagogical experiment conducted within a real representative educational context (Castro & Soares, 2020) – a private Portuguese school involving 480 students, with ages ranging from 11 to 15 years old, and 40 teachers, we have extended this project to older students (until 17 years) and substantially increased its frequency to one / two LSQ per week and per curricular unit. This experiment extension lasted throughout the period of the schools’ confinement that is between March and June 2020. In this paper we will present the results of a mixed study based on teacher’s perception of this strategy obtained through surveys and interviews with teachers. In general results show that the implementation of this very frequent LSQ strongly contributed to maintain students’ commitment on the online learning reducing the impact on students’ performance lowering.

References:
[1] McDaniel, Mark A., Agarwal, Pooja K. and Huelser, Barbie J. (2011) " Test-Enhanced Learning in a Middle School Science Classroom: The Effects of Quiz Frequency and Placement" (2011) Journal of Educational Psychology © 2011 American Psychological Association, Vol. 103, No. 2, 399–414
[2] R. Castro, D. Soares, (2020) “Using a Computed Based LSQ as a Tool to Improve Students Learning Performance” International Technology, Education and Development Conference (INTED2020 - Valencia)

Keywords:

Learning assessment, low stake quiz, online learning.