Impact of formative assessment feedback on students’ conceptual understanding of oxidation-reduction

This study aims to integrate diagnostic assessment into teaching contexts and to examine the impact of assessment feedback on students’ understanding of oxidation-reduction. A total of 200 eighth-grade students from six classes from three high schools were assigned into two experimental groups that received instruction with formative assessment feedback and four comparison groups that received traditional instruction (without formative assessment feedback). The findings showed that the experimental groups performed better on conceptual understanding than the comparison groups. Particularly, within the experimental groups, high-level students progressed better than low-level students. In addition, instruction with formative feedback could help clarify students’ specific misconceptions in science. These findings suggest that formative feedback plays a crucial role in aligning assessment and instruction.