1. Research Problem Part of learning is learning from mistakes, but there is no “safe” mechanism for attempt->failure->reattempt built into most courses where grades depend heavily on a small number of exams. Students have no incentive to revisit “failed” material from midterm exams until studying for the final exam. Students get discouraged when faced with failures on midterm exams.

2. Research Question Will offering students multiple tries on low-stakes assessments improve student perception of learning gains and mastery of learning objectives?

3. Research Methods My primary research methods include: Give online, low-stakes quizzes after each content module. Offer optional “re-quiz” opportunities to give students additional chances to master failed objectives and improve grades. Re- quizzes will not include all objectives. How will I collect these data? Mastery of learning objectives will be measured based on performance on final exam. Final exam questions will be coded based on learning objectives. Survey instrument to collect student attitudes and approaches to repeat quizzes My strategy to analyze these data will be: Use ANOVA followed by post-hoc comparison to compare final exam scores from concepts not quizzed, concepts quizzed once, and concepts covered on re-quizzes. Compare average number of quiz attempts for final letter grade and/or final exam grade Code student responses to repeat quiz survey instrument.

5. Triangulate data Compare final exam question scores on Un-quizzed objectives Quizzed objectives Re-quizzed objectives Compare number of quiz attempts for A, B, C, D, F students Student survey regarding quiz practices over course of semester

6. Alignment of Research Question and Methods Question Will offering students multiple tries on low-stakes assessments improve student perception of learning gains and mastery of learning objectives? Method Offer re-quizzes on select learning objectives Quantitate final exam performance on each learning objective Compare number of attempts with final grade Quantitate final exam performance on each learning objective Compare number of attempts with final grade Student surveys to explain quiz practices