Use of online and offline formative and summative assessment opportunities: have they had any impact on student learning?

For almost a decade we have been providing a large group of first year, undergraduate, biology students with both offline (paper-based) and online assessment resources to support them in their learning. This paper reports on an investigation of the students’ use of these assessment resources, as well as their perceptions of the usefulness of these resources to their learning. The research plan enabled us to investigate any correlations between use or non-use of the assessment resources and final performance in the course. The results show that while the majority of students use and find useful both offline and online assessment resources, use has no differential impact on final learning outcomes.

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