Formative assessment in project-based learning: Supporting alternative on the learning outcome of biology students in university

Abstract

The learning process in higher education is defined as active learning. Nonetheless, there are many learning practices that are oriented only toward mastering the cognitive aspect and only assess the cognitive aspect via paper and pencil test. The objective of this study was to investigate the influence of formative assessment in project-based learning on the learning outcome of Biology Students. This study adopted a quasi-experimental pre-test and post-test control group design to examine the effect of formative assessment on the learning outcome. The samples were 120 Biology Education students from Universitas Negeri Malang and divided into two learning groups. The first learning group as control class and the second as experiment class. The instruments used to measure cognitive learning outcomes were 15 multiple choice questions and 5 essay questions. Data analyses were descriptive analysis and Covariate analysis. The results of the Covariate Analysis test calculations can be seen that F count is 17.456 and the probability value of the learning model is 0,000 or less than 0.05. Formative assessment such as information literacy rubric is needed by students in helping the learning process of Biology students in higher education.