| The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of group testing, gender, age, and ethnicity on student performance on written examinations. Seventy-four first-year baccalaureate nursing students completed a total of five multiple-choice and short-answer written examinations in the first-term of a two-term anatomy and physiology course. Students completed all five examinations in the traditional individual format and three of the five examinations in randomly assigned collaborative testing groups. Group testing resulted in a mean increase of 12.8% +/- 2.18 in student examination scores regardless of age, gender, or ethnicity after controlling for admission grade point average. Small groups consisted of students18 through 22 years of age, 23 years of age and older, males, females, non-minority, and minority students. All students demonstrated enhanced performance on group examinations following participation in small group collaboration with peers. Results indicated that group testing was both an effective learning strategy and formative assessment process for this select, controlled population of students. |
