Students’ Perceived Usefulness of Formative Feedback for a Computer-adaptive Test

In this paper we report on research related to the provision of automated feedback based on a computer adaptive test (CAT), used in formative assessment. A cohort of 76 second year university undergraduates took part in a formative assessment with a CAT and were provided with automated feedback on their performance. A sample of students responded in a short questionnaire to assess their attitude to the quality of the feedback provided. In this paper, we describe the CAT and the system of automated feedback used in our research, and we also present the findings of the attitude survey. On average students reported that they had a good attitude to our automated feedback system. Statistical analysis was used to show that attitude to feedback was not related to performance on the assessment (p>0.05). We discuss this finding in the light of the requirement to provide fast, efficient and useful feedback at the appropriate level for students.