Enhanced conceptual understanding through formative assessment: results of a randomized controlled intervention study in physics classes

While formative assessment is a widely valued instructional approach to support meaningful learning, putting it into classroom practice remains a challenge, also because the time resources required may conflict with other goals. In a cluster-randomized controlled intervention study with 29 teachers and 604 students (mean age 15.6 years) at secondary school level, we examined the yield of formative assessment with regard to students’ conceptual understanding and quantitative problem-solving skills in physics. Ten teachers applied formative assessment (FA group) in a 14-lesson curriculum on kinematics after having undergone a training that focused on the implementation of multiple-choice concept questions together with monitoring tools, clicker sessions, and reflective lessons. In the frequent testing group (FT group), ten teachers had no training on formative assessment but implemented the same concept questions as those used in the FA group. Nine teachers taught kinematics in their traditional way (TT group). The results revealed that students in the FA group outperformed students in the other two groups in a test on conceptual understanding immediately after the intervention as well as 3 months later, whereas students from the FT group and the TT group did not differ. Importantly, a better conceptual understanding in the FA group was not at the expense of performance in quantitative problem solving, as students of this group better integrated both kinds of knowledge. Our study has shown that a short but well-structured formative assessment teacher training could unfold its potential in terms of students’ learning of challenging content.