Comparing student self-assessment to individualized instructor feedback

The literature confirms the commonsense belief that feedback promotes learning. However, personalized feedback, especially in an online environment, can be exceedingly time-consuming for the instructor and may not improve student learning. To test this, a non-random sample of students in three sections of an online statistics course received individualized feedback on weekly homework assignments that were graded solely on completion as pass/fail; students in another three sections of the course were responsible to assess their own homework (but not other projects or examinations) via posted answer keys. A total of 47 students voluntarily completed objective questions testing their knowledge of the subject matter at the end of the course. Overall, there was no difference in learning between the two groups, nor were there any differences in student satisfaction of the course or the instructor. Caveats and implications are discussed.