Evidence Based Practice: Test Corrections and Reflection Activity

Tara Allen

Contact: Karyn Turla

What is it? 

Allowing students to re-work exam questions that they missed to enhance their learning.  

When to use it? 

This can be used for the first exam in a course and/or for an exam on which the class performed poorly.  

Summary of Technique 

After grading an exam, it is handed back to students and they are provided with an opportunity to make test corrections to earn back 50% of the credit for that exam score. The format for the test corrections might vary based on the type of exam questions, but students should be asked to do the following:  

• Explain their reasoning for choosing the original answer on the exam.  
• Indicate the correct answer for the question. 
• Provide an explanation for the correct answer. For multiple-choice questions, indicate why that answer is correct and why the others are wrong. For any math problems, show work for how to solve it.   
• Cite the page in the book and/or number of the PowerPoint slide on which they found the correct answer. By asking students to identify the specific location where they find the answer, this pulls them into the textbook and notes. 

Students receive back half the points for each question they originally missed if they correctly answer it and explain their reasoning.  

Students must also write a summary of how they prepared for the exam - number of hours per week studied, how many days a week they studied, what they did to study, did they read the textbook, did they review the slides ahead of class, etc.  Then students must discuss how they plan to change their study plan moving forward. This activity is required for any students scoring below a certain grade (ex. 70%) on the exam.  

The goal of this activity is three-fold: (1) encourage students to review the content and learn any of the material that they didn’t prior to the exam, (2) help students see how exam questions relate back to class discussions and the reading, and (3) give students the opportunity to reflect on how they studied and make plans to modify it moving forward. 

A study by Brown et al. (2016) showed that students that had the correction opportunity for a mid-term exam performed better on the final exam compared to students that were just given an answer key for the mid-term exam. Additionally, they found that this activity provided a greater benefit to students who didn’t perform as well on the mid-term exam.  

While students that miss more questions have more work to complete their test corrections, they also have the most to gain from the activity (both in points earned back and learning). There are alternatives to this activity where you could have the student create a video to verbally explain how to solve a problem (Center for Engineering Learning and Teaching, 2015).  

Links to Resources  

• https://depts.washington.edu/cpreeuw/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/SCC-FG-05.pdf 

• https://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrE_mS2F9JldpoDx2VXNyoA;_ylu=Y29sbwNiZjEEcG9zAzYEdnRpZAMEc2VjA3Ny/RV=2/RE=1709477047/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2fpeer.asee.org%2fhow-extra-credit-quizzes-and-test-corrections-improve-student-learning-while-reducing-stress.pdf/RK=2/RS=OLpAhYk3DE2gkYxU_Nmuu9QHdU0-  
• https://www.edutopia.org/article/test-corrections-high-school-math  

Personal Experience 

I have utilized this technique for the first exam in a 200-level physiology course that was taken by students with varied background knowledge in biology and chemistry. The first exam in this course covers material that many students should have covered in prior coursework, but I found a wide range of pre-requisite knowledge between students. However, regardless of the level of knowledge students bring into the course, all students need a solid foundational knowledge in these topics for success in subsequent units in the course.  After the first exam, students were given back their graded exams and told that they could earn back 50% of the credit missed if they completed test corrections. When grading the exams, I only marked the questions as incorrect and did not write out any explanation.  

When handing back the exam, the following is stapled to the top of each exam and students are given one week to complete this work.  

Exam 1 Correction and Reflection Assignment  

Below are the instructions that you need to follow when correcting your exam to earn back half of the points that you originally missed for a question. You must turn in your exam paper with the corrections. 

• For all the questions marked wrong on your exam paper, you should do the following three things: 

• Clearly indicate the correct answer for the question,  

• Provide a brief explanation for the correct answer (i.e. for multiple-choice questions: why is this the correct answer? and why are the others answers wrong?), and 

• Cite the page in the book and/or the number of the PowerPoint slide on which you found the correct answer. 

• Do most of the work on the exam paper itself, but you must use a different colored writing utensil to make your corrections. For example, if you completed your exam in pencil, you need use pen to write out your corrections so that I can clearly identify your corrections from the original work. If you don’t have enough room on your exam to make the corrections, you can attach a separate sheet of paper and make a note near the question on the exam to refer me to the other paper.  You must hand-write all your corrections.  

• You must have the correct answer and explanation for it to earn back half of the credit originally missed for that question. Only those questions with correct answers (and explanations) will be used to determine the points earned towards your exam grade.  

• It is my expectation that you will work on this on your own as that will maximize the benefit you gain from this activity! No collaboration with your classmates. Evidence showing collaboration between classmates on this activity will result in all parties receiving no additional credit towards their exam score. If you are stumped on a question and not sure where to start, email me to ask about it. I am glad to help. 

• Describe how you prepared for this examination (number of hours per week you studied, what you did when you studied, did your read the book, did you review the slides ahead of class, etc.).  Then, in a few sentences, indicate your specific plan of action to improve upon your current work in the course.  

After students resubmitted in their exam, I reviewed their missed questions. This process didn’t take as long as the initial grading of the exams. After re-grading the exams, I provided a detailed exam key for all students. 

The feedback on this activity from students was positive, regardless of their initial score on the exam. This positive feedback wasn’t just due to being able to earn more points. Students commented on how it really helped them learn the material, helped them feel more confident for our next unit and identified ways that they should study differently moving forward.  In my experience, nearly all students, regardless of their score, completed this activity. 

Reference List 

Brown, B., A. Mason and C. Singh. (2016) Improving performance in quantum mechanics with explicit incentives to correct mistakes. Physical Review Physics Education Research. 12, 010121, 1-20. https://journals.aps.org/prper/pdf/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.12.010121  

Kemp, Kyeorda. (2021). Test corrections appear to benefit lower-achieving students in an introduction to biology major course: Results of a single-site, one-semester study. J Microbiol Biol Educ. 22(2), e00122-21. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8442006/