The use of formative assessments in traditional and hybrid lecture-labs of industrial engineering undergraduates and their motivational profiles

Abstract

<p><strong>BACKGROUND <strong> Online learning is one way to increase the quality and accessibility of STEM higher education. Most previous research on online learning suffers from methodological deficiencies and doesn't focus on STEM undergraduates (Bowen, 2012).</p> <p><strong>PURPOSE/HYPOTHESIS <strong> The aim of this study was to examine the relationships between the mode of viewing a lecture, participants' motivational profiles, the use of a formative assessment or not on a laboratory exercise, and participants' performance on the laboratory exercise and summative assessment.</p> <p><strong>DESIGN/METHOD <strong> Students in a freshman and sophomore industrial engineering class were randomly assigned to watch a lecture either live or online and then complete a hands-on laboratory exercise either with or without a formative assessment. All participants completed a demographics survey, Work Preference Inventory, and summative assessment.</p> <p><strong>RESULTS <strong> This study showed no difference among the summative assessment scores of participants in each of the four conditions. Four variables explained 33.7% of the variability in summative assessment scores: the participant's intrinsic subscale challenge score, whether the participant used a formative assessment or not, the quantity of unique observations on the laboratory exercise, and the participant's gender. Lastly, participants scored higher on the extrinsic major scale and subscales than participants in two other studies.</p> <p><strong>CONCLUSIONS <strong> This study corrected methodological deficiencies found in other online learning research on Industrial Engineering undergraduates and found no difference in the learning outcomes of students who watched the lecture online as opposed to live. Participants also had a higher extrinsic major scale and subscales scores than those of samples of psychology students and management majors.</p>