According to Hattie´s ground-breaking study, „Visible Learning“ (2013) feedback and formative evaluations rank among the most influential interventions related to student achievements.
ARSnova determines the current individual learning progress („My Learning Progress“) and the learning progress of all participants („Learning Progress of the Course”), on the basis of answers to preparation and lecture questions. The personal learning progress cannot be seen by the lecturer; however, the learning progress of the course can be seen by everyone.
According to the teaching strategy „Just-in-Time Teaching“, student feedback and evaluations in the preparation phase can be helpful in adjusting the content of the lecture. Student feedback and evaluations in the attendance phase allow for a formative evaluation of the teaching process and can reveal specific approaches for improving the teaching strategies. Suited for this purpose could be for example, a five minute evaluation with free-text questions at the end of a lecture: What did you get from the lecture today? What did you not understand from the lecture? How can the next lecture be improved?
The evaluations can be calculated as question-based or point-based. When calculating a question-based evaluation, all questions are immediately evaluated in the same manner, even if there are different high scores. This option is more restrictive: In order for the answers to be considered correct, the evaluation must include all possible correct answer options, and no incorrect answer options are to be selected. The calculated point-based weighted questions, with multiple correct answer options, are stronger than questions with only one correct answer.
The weighting of a response option can be set on a scale ranging from -10 to +10 points. The lecturer can make distractors (misconceptions and typical false answers, whose selection indicates a lack of knowledge) with such a strong negative impact, that the entire answer would be assessed as wrong, even if the correct answer alternatives would also be selected. If the total score obtained for a question is negative, it will be set to zero for evaluating the learning progress.
