Effects of a Confidence‐Based, Individualized Remediation Strategy on Student Learning and Final Grades in an Occupational Therapy Anatomy Course
Authors: Snow Ethan , Miller Zachary , Meyer Mandy , Ruit Kenneth 
Published: June 2021

Measuring the number of correct answers on high‐stakes course examinations represents a one‐dimensional approach to understanding student learning. While a total number of points can easily be used to award a final grade according to a predetermined scale, achievement of competencies, i.e., knowledge and skills, in direct relation to stated course learning outcomes is multidimensional. Self‐confidence and general self‐efficacy play an important role in performance. For example, assessment methods that incorporate measures of both correctness and confidence detect student awareness of lack of knowledge (low confidence for an incorrect answer), misinformation (high confidence for an incorrect answer), guesswork (low confidence for a correct answer), as well as content mastery (high confidence for a correct answer). The present study investigated whether employing an individualized re‐examination approach in which self‐confidence was taken into account to remediate poor academic performance impacted student learning and final grades.

On each of six high‐stakes lecture (selected‐response) and lab (constructed‐response) examinations, a 2016 cohort of 64 occupational therapy anatomy students reported self‐confidence on a 3‐point Likert‐type scale for their answers to each exam question. All exam questions were specifically linked to course learning objectives. After each examination, each student received written feedback regarding the six learning objectives on which they performed poorest based on their confidence in the correctness of their answers. On the subsequent examination, each student was administered six Individualized Remediation Questions (IRQs) retesting each of the six identified learning objectives. Examinations were scored and remediation performance was analyzed.

All students showed an average increase in performance on IRQs retesting course learning objectives compared to their initial performance; students answered an average of 54 ± 5 (75% ± 6.9%) of 72 total IRQs with a higher correctness/confidence performance level than before (p < 0.001). Having to answer IRQs caused the overall grade percentages of all 64 students to decrease by an average of −2.02% ± 0.8% (p < 0.001). Grade percentage decreases ranged from −0.34% to −4.38% and translated to a lower letter grade for 16 students (25%) (p < 0.001). In an end‐of‐course survey, 29 students (45.3%) reported IRQs helped them master and retain more course content, while 46 students (71.9%) believed those same questions lowered their grade. Only 12 students (18.8%) believed they learned more yet likely received lower grades because of the intervention.

This study demonstrates how a confidence‐based assessment method can be used to create a remediation intervention that more meaningfully assesses student performance. Even though being retested on objectives tended to have a negative impact on their final grade, this remediation strategy enhances student performance and perceptions of their learning by more accurately aligning correctness with confidence. Better understanding student confidence and attitudes toward learning may inform other strategies to successfully remediate poor academic performance.

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This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.