Effective Feedback for Self-Regulated Learning: Applying Cognitive Diagnosticassessment

Most tests only provide students with information of their total test scores, or T-scores, which is no use for improving their learning. Students need to receive more feedback from the test about the state of their own knowledge and skill mastery profiles to enhance their motivation to learn, and to adjust what and how they are learning. Recently, cognitive diagnostic assessment (CDA) which is designed to measure specific knowledge structures and processing skills in students has attracted a great deal of attentions. We apply a CDA approach in fraction problems to 144 grade 6th students in an elementary school in Japan. We show how CDA can provide detailed information about learners' strengths and weaknesses and discuss the applicability of CDA for providing effective feedback for learning.