Action research on a new form of
formative assessment

Teaching mathematics to Foundation Engineering students at an Australian offshore university campus showed many challenging aspects such as students showing mathematics phobia, surface learning approaches by the students and lecturers having difficulty in motivating the students to do their exercises on time. Keeping these problems in mind, the objective of this action research was to create a new form of formative assessment, which would result in an improved unit content, workload, teaching and learning of the unit and would motivate the students to do their exercises on time. The sample for this research included a group of first semester students from a Foundation Engineering Programme, which consists of 38 students. The concept of the Tutorial Progress Sheet was introduced to the unit. Successful completion of the topic exercises ensured that the students got a signature in their Tutorial Progress Sheet. In order to secure a signature and a mark from the lecturer the student must not only submit the topic exercise, but also explain the proposed solution and concepts of the exercise, which reflects a deep learning approach by the student. Most of the students were making steady progress in the unit and the lecturer could keep track of the individual progress of each students. Based on the research, the introduction of the progress sheet into the mathematics unit encourages a transition from surface learning towards deeper learning. This motivates the student to learn and translates into a good formative assessment approach.