Students' motives for using online formative assessments when preparing for summative assessments.
BACKGROUND
Formative assessments intend to provide feedback on student performance in order to improve and accelerate learning. Several studies have indicated that students using online formative assessments (OFAs), have better results on their exams.


OBJECTIVE
The present study aims to provide insight in student reasons for using or not using available OFAs.


METHODS
Three OFAs with feedback were available in a second year undergraduate course in physiology for biomedical sciences students (N = 147). First, students received an open questionnaire about why they did (not) complete the first two OFAs. Based on this data, a closed questionnaire was developed and distributed among students. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was applied.


RESULTS
The results indicate reasons why students do (not) use the OFAs. The EFA for using the OFAs indicated three factors, that were interpreted as collecting (1) feed up, (2) feed forward, and (3) feed back information. The main reasons for not using the OFAs were lack of time and having completed the questions before.


CONCLUSIONS
Students' reasons for using OFAs can be described in terms of collecting feed up, forward and back information and students' reasons for not using OFAs can be student-, teacher-, or mode-related.
Utrecht University , The Netherlands.
Renske A M
RA
De Kleijn
Rianne A M
RA
Bouwmeester
Magda M J
MM
Ritzen
Stephan P J
SP
Ramaekers
Harold V M
HV
Van Rijen
D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate; D004521:Educational Measurement / Q000379:methods*; D005246:Feedback; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D009862:Online Systems; D010827:Physiology / Q000193:education*; D013337:Students, Medical / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires