THE INFLUENCE OF FREQUENT QUIZ-BASED EXAMS ON LEARNING PERFORMANCE AMONG COMPUTER SCIENCE STUDENTS

Abstract

The statement that frequent testing improves student performance makes perfect logical sense. Although there is much available research proving this statement, the majority of educational programmes are built to evaluate students based on their performance on semestral exams. Reasons for this are most probably of a purely logistical nature. Educational technology can assist in overcoming these challenges. This study aims to evaluate the impact of frequent quiz-based tests on students’ educational achievement. For this purpose, a platform for delivering tests to students after each class was built. Each test consisted of ten questions with multiple choice answers and students had immediate feedback on whether their answers were correct or not. The final exam consisted of thirty multiple choice questions and was administered on the same platform and under the same conditions as the regular tests. The research was conducted with the assistance of 50 students who were divided into two groups for the purpose of the experiment. The first group comprised 27 students who took tests after each class and then took the final exam. The second group consisted of the remaining 23 students who took only the final exam. All of the students were aware of the purpose of the experiment. The results indicate that students whose knowledge was routinely assessed perform 13.3 percent better than their peers who just took the final exam. In an educational setting, this disparity in results contributes to an increase of one academic grade and hence cannot be ignored. The results show that even unsupervised frequent testing of students can improve their learning performance.