Self-Correcting Exams: Making the Summative Formative
Melanie Wong Dodge, Diane Ryan
This paper was completed and submitted in partial fulfillment of the Master Teacher Program, a 2-year faculty
professional development program conducted by the Center for Teaching Excellence, United States Military
Academy, West Point, NY, 2009.
Abstract
As instructors of an introductory psychology course at the United States Military Academy
(USMA), we are interested in helping our students understand, explain, and influence human
behavior. Likewise, as developing leaders of character, it is paramount they discover the value of
and strategies to becoming effective lifelong learners for themselves and as future leaders of
adult professionals. We assume that our freshmen are psychologically ready to transition to and
reap the benefits of an andragogical model of education. Our focus is on investigating the merits
of one particular student-centered teaching and learning strategy: self-correcting exams. We are
interested in how summative evaluations may serve as formative assessments if designed and
deployed as such. Our exploratory research investigates whether self-correcting exams help
students learn the subject matter better as measured by improved test scores as well as if the
strategy helps develop enhanced self-regulated learning behaviors. Our preliminary findings did
not support our hypothesis that students who self-corrected their exams performed better on
subsequent testing than those who didn’t self-correct, however that may be due to the
convenience sample utilized and other variables not controlled for in our pilot study. With
respect to our second line of inquiry, in a follow-on survey, students reported overwhelmingly
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positive attitudes on the self-correcting activity and indicated improved self-regulated learning
behaviors and insights. Further investigation is ongoing to examine and clarify what factors
influence the development and reinforcement of mastery learning goals as well as of selfregulated learning behaviors.
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Two common goals of most educators are to help their students gain understanding about
a specific subject and develop their students’ ability to learn. As instructors of a mandatory
introductory psychology course at the United States Military Academy (USMA), we are
particularly interested in helping our students understand, explain, and influence human behavior
which will be critical to their future success as leaders. Likewise, it is paramount they discover
the value of and strategies to becoming effective lifelong learners for themselves as well as to
help facilitate organizational learning in their future units.
Most freshmen enter college with over twelve years experience with the pedagogical
model of education. We define this model as one in which the teacher has full responsibility for
the learning, including making all the decisions about what, when, and how a subject will be
learned as well as if it has been learned (Knowles, Holton III, & Swanson, 2005). One of our
tasks is to move the needle to where the student assumes more responsibility for their own
learning which is consistent with the andragogical model of education (Knowles et al., 2005).
The first step is to create a climate that goes beyond just learning about specific subject
areas to also encouraging greater metacognition. This awareness requires students to understand
their own cognitive processes in learning as well as beliefs about them and the subject (Ellis
Ormrod, 2008).
As students develop an awareness and appreciation for metacognition, they may be
interested in exploring more effective learning strategies. At this point, we can assist our students
by introducing them to the benefits and components of self-regulated learning theory. For
example, we can explain how self-efficacy influences self-regulation, metacognition, and
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resilience, whereas different cognitive and self-regulated strategies may directly affect
performance (Pintrich & De Groot, 1990).
A particular strategy of interest in this area is students’ cognitions about test taking.
Many students may view tests simply as summative evaluations designed to make a judgment
about how much learning has occurred (Boston, 2002). However, tests can also be formative;
that is, tests may also serve to improve learning not only provide a grade (Angelo & Cross, 1993;
Jaffe, 2008). Moreover, while a cramming strategy may have been successful in high school,
many students discover the technique ineffective in college for both mastery and performance
goals.
This new need is representative of freshmen’s transition from an adolescent learner to an
adult learner. Here we begin to encounter a shift from subject-centered learning to a problemcentered orientation where students become motivated to learn in order to help them meet their
self-set goals (Knowles et al., 2005).
One promising teaching and learning strategy that offers summative evaluations
formative outcomes is the self-correcting approach. This is because students may experience a
conceptual change about tests and their performance as they experience a greater locus of control
over their performance and take an active learning approach to evaluating and monitoring their
progress (Montepare, 2005).
To investigate the notion of whether or not self-correcting exams improve learning, we
conducted a pilot study. Our first research question was whether self-correcting exams help
students learn better. We hypothesized that students who self-corrected their interim exams
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would perform better on their final exam than those who didn’t. Our second research question
was whether self-correcting exams help facilitate self-regulated learning behaviors.
Methods
Participants
For our pilot study, a convenience sample of predominately male, 17-24 year old
freshman students enrolled in our introductory psychology class volunteered as participants. All
but six our students volunteered for the experimental group (n=126). An equal number of
students drawn randomly from other instructors comprised the control group. About 20% of the
participants had a year of prep school and some had completed a high school AP psychology
class, but these variables were not measured.
Procedure
Students enrolled in many introductory psychology courses are customarily offered extra
credit opportunities, chiefly to serve as participants in student and faculty research projects. Our
course policy allows students to earn up to thirty points, which generally depends on the time
expended not effort, i.e., the equivalent of ten points for each hour spent.
Our students were asked if they wanted to participate in the pilot or other extra credit
opportunities throughout the semester and if so, they signed an informed consent. Nearly all of
our students volunteered to participate in our study despite the fact that the extra credit points for
our study were not assigned as a result of quantity of time expended, but rather the number of
initially wrong answers that were successfully corrected which required effort.
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Participants were permitted to self-correct the first three interim exams. To execute the
self-correcting exams, we scored all three exams without comments and returned them to our
students within 2 to 4 days depending on the availability of the majority of the subject pool. To
receive credit, students were required to specify why they chose the wrong answer, identify the
correct answer, and provide a justification for their corrected choice. Students were allowed to
use their homework (course guide) as a resource in their self-correction endeavors. Points
awarded were based on the following guidelines:
Points awarded:
% Items Corrected
100
70
50
30
Points awarded
10
7
5
3
Table 1
Upon completion of the final self-correcting exam, students also completed a 17-item
online survey to assess their learning and study behaviors.
Measures
Final exam. Students were given a cumulative final exam comprised of 75 multiple
choice questions (two points each) and five essay questions (10 points each). The entire exam
was worth 250 course points, however for the purposes of this study were converted to the
standard 100 point scale. Three and a half hours were allotted to complete the exam.
Online survey. Following the three self-correction opportunities, students were asked to
complete a 17-item online survey designed to capture their subjective appraisals of the exercise
(Appendix A). The first section asked the participants how many exams they had self corrected
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and their assessment of the importance of factors that may have influenced their decision to
partake in the endeavor, as well as their appraisal of their effort level. Section Two dealt with
individual study habits and expectations of what the student hoped to gain from self-correcting.
The final section requested feedback for improving future self-correcting opportunities. Students
were given an incentive to complete the survey in lieu of a daily quiz worth five points.
Results
Research question 1. An independent samples t-test revealed no significant difference
between the experimental and control groups on final exam results. Hence the hypothesis was
not supported.
Research question 2. Participants were asked to assess the importance of three major
factors that influenced their decision to self-correct their exams (Figure 1). Almost 90 percent
felt that the ability to improve their learning was an important factor with more than one-third
considering it to be very important. However, the chance to earn bonus points was the highest
rated factor with a nearly unanimous rating of very important. Finally, participants were asked
how much the opportunity to influence their instructor’s opinion of them mattered. About three
quarters considered this to be very to somewhat important, while 16% felt it was just slightly
important. The remaining 14% reported that this factor did not influence their decision to
participate at all.
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Figure 1. Factors Influencing Decision to SelfCorrect
100%
90%
23.1
34.2
80%
70%
60%
93.2
50%
40%
46.2
54.7
Very
Important
Somewhat
Important
Slightly
Important
Not at All
Important
30%
16.2
20%
10%
10.3
0%
Chance to Improve
Learning
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14.5
Chance to Earn Extra Instructor's Opinion of
Credit
Me
Figure 1.
Subjects were asked to estimate how much they believed self-corrections contributed to a
discrete number of learning tasks and outcomes (Figure 2). Results were evenly divided, and
participants overwhelmingly agreed that self-corrections significantly assisted them in
preparation for exams, performance on exams, and the necessity to prepare homework. In each
case, more than half of the participants strongly agreed that self-corrections had greatly aided
their efforts in these endeavors.
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Figure 2. To What Extent Did Self-Corrections
Help You?
100%
90%
80%
70%
60.7
53.8
53
60%
Greatly
50%
Somewhat
40%
Slightly
30%
32.5
35.9
5.1
1.7
10.3
3.4
9.4
1.7
Prepare for Exams
Perform on Exams
Increase Homework Effort
32.5
20%
10%
0%
Not at All
Figure 2.
Discussion
The results from the final exam scores did not support the hypothesis, yet, that may be
due to the use of the convenience sample. On the other hand, the qualitative results support
research question two and encourage further investigation. The participants reported
overwhelmingly positive attitudes toward self-correction and indicated that they learned valuable
study habits and insights as a result of their participation, e.g., that they should complete their
homework as completely and accurately as possible during the semester and not just cram. And
thought they stated that earning extra credit points was a major factor in self-selecting to
participate, they had a choice to do traditional extra credit that guaranteed full points for time as
opposed to this riskier option. Moreover, while they indicated that the opportunity to influence
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their instructor’s opinion was a factor in participating, there was no tangible incentive in terms of
earning instructor points towards their overall grade in the course.
Further investigation is currently ongoing to pilot alternative measures and procedures. In
the future we will employ a random sample of students from the entire course. Some variables
such as prior academic experience may also be controlled for in follow-on studies. Moreover,
collaboration and inquiry with other departments on their experience with similar strategies will
be explored to further augment our self-correcting study to investigate if the activity can develop
and enhance adult learning behavior and favorable mastery outcomes.
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Appendix A: Self-Correcting Exam Student Survey
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References
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