Abstract:

The main purpose of this study was to determine if the use of formative assessment had an impact on learning outcomes of grade four students, in science subject. In Pakistan, summative assessment is in common practice that evaluates the student learning at the end of a unit or course. Recent summative assessment done by National Education Assessment System (NEAS) for primary education in science subject reveals an overall poor performance with only 21% students crossing the mean score. The most alarming aspect of report is that 98% of the teachers reported students’ difficulty in lesson during instructions, which raises serious questions regarding the education process that is failing to develop the needed understanding.

In this study the research was conducted using an interactive science quiz application, developed in accordance with the latest Pakistan National Curriculum for General Science. The quiz application is based on the first unit of science textbook named “understanding ourselves”. It consists of 16 questions covering human body organs. The purpose of developing this formative assessment quiz application was to move students’ learning forward by providing timely feedback in the form of additional information and to engage them with the content by adding game elements. The game elements used in this quiz application are story, characters, sounds, feedback, rewards and scores.

This research was carried out on fourth grade students in two federal government schools, for boys and girls, respectively. The schools are located in Islamabad. An experimental research design was utilized to gather quantitative data through the use of pre and post-test. The pre and post-test were validated by with the support of science teachers. Participants (N=120) were divided into two groups: control and experiment group. The students (N=60) in experimental group used a formative assessment interactive science quiz application for a week.

The pre-test and post-test scores of control and experiment group were compared to determine if the use of formative assessment had a statistically significant impact on students’ performance. In order to compare the scores within control group the pre-test/post-test scores of control group were compared. While the pre-test/post-test scores of experiment group were compared to determine the effectiveness of formative assessment interactive quiz application. Moreover, to determine the impact of quiz application on gender differences in scores, pre and post-test of the experimental group were compared.

Results of this study reveal that the students (N=60), including boys and girls, in the control group did not show a significant change in scores. Their scores before and after the intervention remained same or decreased. The results from the experimental group (N=60), including boys and girls showed a statistically significant increase in scores after using the formative science quiz application. This exhibits that descriptive feedback and game elements enhanced student outcome and developed their understanding. Students were found to be more engaged and attentive during the learning process. Additional research to determine the effectiveness of formative assessment at primary level, by making interactive quizzes for all the units of science textbook can make this research more valuable.

Keywords:

Formative assessment, learning quality, game elements.