The impact of quizzes on student learning and how to design them

Abstract

Assessment of students can not only be used to assess student knowledge, but also to enhance learning. An appropriate assessment method should be created for the course and it should not be too overwhelming in regards to workload for both students and teachers. Therefore, regular quizzes could be a good option. In this report two major questions regarding quizzes are answered, 1) Do quizzes enhance learning outcome? and 2) How shall quizzes be designed to give the best result?

In order to find an answer to these questions, several educational theories and their connection to quizzes are analyzed and discussed. These theories are: the testing effect, motivational models, scaffolding, and self-regulated learning. In addition to this, two large case studies regarding quizzes were also discussed.

Our findings are that quizzes do enhance student learning, and that the design of the quizzes depends on the situation. However, general guidelines regarding quiz design are proposed. These include that regular quizzes with some content overlap, giving bonus points on an all or nothing approach, with relative challenging questions that are not multiple choice, are the best strategy for quiz design. Moreover, quizzes could be beneficial for student learning to decrease the time spent on studying.

Overall, quizzes are a good tool for enhancing student learning, and time spent on creating them in a good way will be time well spent.