What Is The Immediate Feedback Assessment Technique (IF-AT)?

The IF-AT is an innovative multiple-choice assessment tool that gives students immediate affirmation and/or corrective feedback on their knowledge, ensuring that a student’s last response to a question is the correct one.  It also allows instructors to give partial credit for proximate knowledge.  IF-AT can be used for formative feedback and testing.

How Does The Immediate Feedback Assessment Technique Work?

1.         Students read the multiple-choice question and the series of answer options.  They then select the rectangle (marked A, B, C, or D) corresponding to their answer choice and scratch off the covering.  If the answer is correct, a star or other symbol appears.  Students receive full credit (if using the IF-AT for a test rather than formative feedback).

2.         If the student selects an incorrect answer (empty rectangle, student cannot change the answer), the student re-reads the question and all of the remaining options, and tries again.  If the second choice is correct, a star appears and the student can earn partial credit.  The student knew enough to be able to narrow the options, distinguishing him or herself from another student who was simply guessing.  If a student’s second choice does not uncover the star, he/she re-reads the question and the remaining options, and tries again.

3.         The process continues until the student uncovers the correct answer, even if it requires that the student scratch off all possible boxes.  On a test, the instructor determines the number of points allocated for correct responding on first and later attempts.  Students leave a quiz or examination knowing the correct answer, knowing how well or poorly they did and they are aware of the gaps in their knowledge. 

What Are the Benefits of Using the Immediate Feedback Assessment Technique?  •

• Because the student “exits” each question knowing the correct answer, the IF-AT process also serves as a learning experience.  Misconceptions are immediately replaced with knowledge.

• Immediate feedback guides students to correct answers and improves their retention.

• Students identify gaps in their knowledge.

• Students become active participants in error analysis and correction.

• Increases students’ performance on subsequent tests of related material.

• Students’ thought processes and response patterns are recognizable with the IF-AT, and the scoring system allows instructors to allocate partial credit for proximate knowledge: boosts the struggling learners.

• The IF AT form enables both immediate feedback and answering-until-correct during classroom assessments and transforms the passive gatherer of information into the active demonstrator of skills and knowledge. These results have been consistent across numerous studies with various populations including preschool children with developmental delays acquiring academic readiness materials, and elementary and junior high school students with mental retardation and learning disabilities acquiring academic readiness materials and social skills. 

Enjoyable Tests – no longer an oxymoron!

 IF-AT test sheets are now used by instructors in many hundreds of schools, colleges, and graduate programs in the United States and abroad. One attribute of IF-AT that makes it popular with students at all levels is its game-like quality. It is actually fun to take IF-AT tests, and students often ask that more be given! Research shows that students like a sense of being “in control” of the test through giving themselves partial credit, giving themselves a chance to “get it right,” to emerge from each question with the right answer, and to know their scores before leaving the test.  Interestingly, researchers have not found this to be the case when students take traditional multiple-choice tests, whether they be paper and pencil or computer-generated. 

The IF-AT offers students and teachers the opportunity to enjoy the test-taking process!

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