Enhancing learning engagement through formative e-assessment in general education foundation course tutorials

Prior studies have highlighted the importance of General Education (GE) in reinvigorating higher education. In spite of the significant contribution of GE, students’ engagement in the course is also frequently negative. Formative e-assessment (FEA) is supposed to enhance undergraduates’ learning engagement due to the nature of formative assessment and the relative affordability of technology. An FEA intervention was included in GE foundation course tutorials which used Kahoot!, Mentimeter, and Google+. This study adopted a quasi-experimental design to demonstrate the effectiveness of FEA intervention on student tutorial engagement. At the end of one-term tutorial, two experimental groups and one control group completed a survey on course engagement, and eight students from experimental groups attended two focus group interviews. The findings reveal that students in experimental groups were more engaged than those in the control group although the difference was not significant. Kahoot! was perceived the most useful to engage students, and Google+ was believed the least effective to engage students due to their unfamiliarity with it, examination-oriented learning attitudes, low course learning motivation, and time constraints. Copyright © 2021 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.