Design a reflective mechanism to engage students in student-constructed test activity

Abstract

Student-constructed test (SCT) strategy engages learners in constructing tests around the learned materials, which involves three cognitive tasks, test-planning, question-generation, and testsetting. In addition to the educational benefit of having student generate questions, prior studies substantiated the positive effects SCT strategy on the breadth, depth, interconnectivity, and elaboration of knowledge. Majority of the question-generation research devoted to exploration of enhancing students question generation performance by training and scaffolds. However, few researches investigated how to sustain students' intrinsic motivation and reduce their anxiety during the question-posing process. Furthermore, the benefits of game-based learning were evidenced in numerous empirical research; however, the potential effects of designing a board game centering on question-generation tasks still need to be studied. This study aims to design a serious board game to engage students in reflecting test-construction process. The design-based research method is adopted. Twelve college students won in a series of board game competition were invited to play the game again. The strategies they employed and their perception toward the design board game were collected via a focus group interview. The results indicated that participants were engaged in reflecting the characteristics of a good test-item by evaluating their own test-items and observing other players' test-items in a joyful environment. keep examining their test-items and the theories. The results also supported the joyful learning experience, which makes SCT fun. Recommendation on future research is provided.