Co-Regulated Online Learning: Formative Assessment as Learning

Abstract

Course assessment is traditionally a one-way process, where an instructors evaluates pupils’ progress toward mastery. Done conscientiously, this sort of feedback can be effective, but relies upon an individual student’s ability to self-regulate, which is in turn predicated upon their ability to manage their environment and incorporate evaluations into their work. Co-regulated learning is a relatively new idea, wherein students evaluate themselves and each other, which helps the learners not only improve their own work, but absorb the underlying rationale of the lessons as well. One underexplored area is whether a co-regulated environment in which the learners are also expected to evaluate the instructor can lead to better outcomes. The authors designed doctoral-level online courses with the explicit intent of using student feedback to improve the curricula, and this study demonstrates that incorporating those assessments seemed to markedly improve enrollees’ ratings of course-design elements and their mastery of the subject matter.