Reinforcing Online Learning Outcomes Through Scaffolded Formative Assessments

Learning outcomes among accounting students at two independent Australian higher education institutions (1 and 2) were compared. The two organizations ran introductory accounting subjects for business students which were very close in coverage and assessed by similar methods at similar levels of difficulty. Teaching differed in one important way. Institution 1 supplied additional teaching material consisting of sequences of related accounting tasks corresponding to each topic, with online explanatory support that initially was strong, and reduced for later tasks in each sequence, in a pattern that approximated true scaffolding. The purpose was to help students to get started on learning by doing, so that formative experience could be available to them, and hence also to reduce the anxiety about quantitative tasks often found to impede learning in accounting subjects. Assessments requiring problem-solving under examination conditions in each institution afforded six pairs of tasks that were comparable to a degree that permitted grading using a common marking scheme. Students' responses were marked using a common scheme, and mean scores on each pair were compared. Results favoured Institution 1 (scaffolding provided) in four of the six comparisons, with no significant differences in the remaining two. A composite score, which could be calculated for a subset of the tasks, also favoured Institution 1.