Requiring "Mastery": A Path Toward Improvement

The impact of requiring students to redo assignments when they do not earn at least a 75%.

Presented by:

Aaron PeaksMease

Abstract:

This study explores the impact of requiring students to redo assignments when they do not
earn at least a 75%. Research finds positive impacts for students when mastery-based
learning is implemented in a course. These positive impacts include more favorable views
toward the content and instruction (Anderson, 1994; Kulik, Kulik, & Bangert-Drowns, 1990)
and students feeling that their work better reflected their knowledge of the topic along with
less time spent studying outside of class (Harsy & Hoofnagle, 2020). Results from this
study indicate that requiring mastery results in fewer students needing to redo
assignments and results in higher exam grades as the semester progresses.

Keywords:

Statistics; SOTL; Mastery

Learning Outcomes:

1. Understand the positive outcomes that can occur after implementing mastery-
based learning.
2. Learn how to manage grade-inflation that is typically associated with mastery-
based learning.
3. Learn how to construct a SOTL project that controls for the variability of students
from semester to semester.