| Despite the literature supporting formative testing, most college professors viewed testing only as summative, a means of assigning grades, and believed that an emphasis on summative testing obscured the promotion of learning, which resulted in the use of testing less frequently or sometimes never. The problem was that financial accounting instructors did not know whether a course curriculum that included summative testing, multiple-choice quizzes or short-answer quizzes, or a curriculum that did not include summative testing would enhance student learning of first-year financial accounting information. A study to test the effects of different forms of summative testing on student achievement in first-year financial accounting courses was conducted using data collected from 45 non-randomly selected and conveniently available participants, a convenience sample, comprised of students enrolled in first-year Financial Accounting courses. To answer the research questions, a quasi-experimental, between-subject and repeated measures research design was employed. A quantitative research method was necessary for the proposed study because an examination of the relationship between different forms of frequent summative testing and student achievement in first-year financial accounting courses using mid-term and final exam scores was desired. The data was examined using a mixed-design ANOVA and revealed that the main effect of group (treatment) was significant, F(2, 42) = 9.054, p < .05, meaning that the scores were different across the treatment groups. The pairwise comparisons indicated that the group receiving no quiz treatment achieved significantly different exam scores than the group receiving the multiple-choice treatment, p = .001. The data supported the use of frequent testing, multiple-choice quizzes, to enhance student learning of accounting information. Frequent testing should begin early in the course in order to encourage early and continuous benefits from the testing effect. Instructors should utilize quiz questions that are similar but not exactly the same as the mid-term and final exam questions to promote transfer, the use of learned material to solve novel problems. Further research is needed to establish whether second, third, and fourth-year accounting students benefit from frequent testing. A study investigating the effects of frequent testing on student achievement in online versus residential accounting courses would also be beneficial. |
