Association questions on knowledge retention
- PDF / 918,818 Bytes
- 16 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 33 Downloads / 315 Views
Association questions on knowledge retention Chien-Hung Lai 1
& Bin-Shyan
Jong 2 & Yen-Teh Hsia 2 & Tsong-Wuu Lin 3
Received: 29 July 2020 / Accepted: 13 October 2020/ # Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Association questions (AQs) are a novel form of multiple-choice questions (MCQs). To answer an AQ, learners must recall the concepts denoted by the given terms, affirm their connections, and then select the term with a denotation that is “less connected” with other concepts. This research hypothesizes that the use of AQ tests for reviewing course contents can significantly help learners to assimilate and/or accommodate what was covered in class and to store the resulting cognitive structures in long-term memory (LTM). To test this hypothesis, an educational experiment was conducted. The results showed that the use of optional online AQ tests for reviewing course contents helped with knowledge retention and was especially suitable for learners with medium levels of initial knowledge. AQs are easy to answer and grade. Therefore, it should be worthwhile to use AQ tests for formative assessment whenever AQs can be designed to help learners better understand course contents. Keywords Association question . Multiple-choice question . Assimilation .
Accommodation . Knowledge retention
1 Introduction Multiple-choice questions (MCQs) are often used in test strategy for formative assessment and summative assessments (Sadler 1989; Su 2018). MCQs are often used for measuring recalls (Paxton 2010; Pamplett and Farnhill 1995; Resnick and Resnick 1992; Tarrant et al. 2006). This research proposes a novel form of MCQs called association questions (AQs), and show that the use of AQ tests for reviewing course * Chien-Hung Lai [email protected]
1
Department of Electronic Engineering, Chung Yuan Christian University, Chung Li, Taiwan
2
Department of information & Computer Engineering, Chung Yuan Christian University, Chung Li, Taiwan
3
Department of Computer Science and Information Management, Soochow University, Taipei, Taiwan
Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability
contents can help learners to better retain knowledge. Table 1 presents two versions of the problem statement of an AQ, along with four examples testing general knowledge. All AQs have the same problem statement. Therefore, the problem statement of an AQ can be omitted once test takers know how to answer AQs. To answer an AQ, a learner needs to retrieve concepts from what he or she knows and to think about their intuitive connections (or associations). The cognitive activities involved in doing this are closely related to Piaget’s theory of how humans learn. According to Piaget (Piaget 1950, 1952), humans continuously interact with their surrounding environments and use assimilation and accommodation to adjust their knowledge. By doing so, humans are able to adapt to their environments. Assimilation involves the incorporation of new information or experiences into one’s existing “framework” of cognitive structures, while accommodation invo
Data Loading...
