Too often, students have a tendency to forget the concepts they have learned after the exam is over.  As a result, it would be convenient to figure out how students could retain information over a longer period of time.  In this study, a large chemistry class was used to analyze the effects of homework feedback on student short-term and delayed retention of general chemistry concepts.  Because general chemistry classes tend to have hundreds of students enrolled, many large institutions have moved to online homework.  For this study, the Online Web-Based Learning (OWL) system was used to provide feedback to all the students.  A large chemistry class was divided into two groups; students in Group 1 received immediate feedback, including the correctness, the answer, a solution, and a discussion of the solution, while students in Group 2 received limited feedback, consisting of only the correctness and the answer.  Group equivalency was established using the Test of Logical Thinking. After the completion of the online assignments, a content-based lecture quiz was given to all the students to measure the short-term retention.  Delayed content retention was measured by a comprehensive final exam administered 2 months after the online assignments were completed.  The data suggests that providing feedback increases the level of retention.

Measuring the effects of online homework on student content retention in first semester general chemistry

247th National Meeting (2014)

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