Classroom Assessment Techniques Minute Paper (Screen 5 of 6)

Theory and Research

Minute papers are commonly believed to be the most widely used CAT in higher education (Angelo and Cross, 1993). A recent search by R. R. Hake on Google yielded over a million hits for “minute paper.” Richard Light (2001) writes that at Harvard “Some experienced professors comment that it is the best example of high payoff for a tiny investment …” And Light (1990) noted that the minute paper was the single most successful classroom innovation at Harvard.

Faculty many times in many variations have probably reinvented the minute paper (Kloss, 1998). As far as I can tell, the first reported formal use of the minute paper can be traced to physicist Charles Schwartz at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1983 (Davis et al., 1983). Whatever its origin, the minute paper is a powerful assessment tool for continuous improvement of a class (Wilson, 1986).

For all their popularity, minute papers have a very limited research base. The evidence to date, though, supports the hypothesis that the regular use of minute papers can result in gains in conceptual understanding. Chizmar and Ostrosky (1998), in economics classes, examined the hypothesis that the minute paper would “enhance students’ economic knowledge”. They used a pre/post design with the Test for the Understanding of College Economics (TUCE). They concluded that students in the sections with the minute paper outgained those in sections without minute papers over one semester, independent of GPA. In an introductory accounting course, Almer, Jones, and Moeckel (1998) concluded that students who wrote ungraded minute papers had significantly higher performance on subsequent essay quizzes than those who did not.

Links

For Davis et al.: http://teaching.berkeley.edu/compendium
For Chizmar and Ostrosky: http://www.indiana.edu/~econed/issues/v29_1/1.htm

Sources

Almer, E. D., Jones, K., and Moeckel, C., (1998). “The Impact of One-Minute Papers on Learning in an Introductory Accounting Class”, Issues in Accounting Education, 13 (3), pp. 485-497.

Angelo, Thomas A. and Cross, K. Patricia, (1993). Classroom assessment techniques: A handbook for college teachers. 2nd edition. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, pp. 148-153.

Davis, Barbara G., Wood, L., Wilson, Robert C., (1983). In “ABCs of Teaching with Excellence: A Berkeley Compendium of Suggestions for Teaching with Excellence”,

Chizmar, John A. and Ostrosky, Anthony L., (1998). “The One-Minute Paper: Some Empirical Findings.” Journal of Economic Education, Winter 29 (1), pp. 1-8.

Kloss, Robert J. (1998). College Teaching, vol. 41 (2), pp. 60-63.

Light, Richard J., (1990). Harvard Assessment Seminars: First Report.

Light, Richard J., (2001). Making the Most of College: Students Speak Their Minds. Harvard University Press.

Weaver, R. L. and Cotrell, H. W., (1985). “Mental Aerobics: The Half-Sheet Response”, Innovative Higher Education, 10, pp. 23-31.

Wilson, Robert C., (1986). Improving Faculty Teaching: Effective Use of Student Evaluations and Consultants.” Journal of Higher Education, 57 (2), pp. 196-211.

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