Promoting feedback through second chance assessment: the Hong Kong experience

Traditionally, second chance assessment involves giving students a first assessment and then the opportunity to take the same or a similar assessment again. Most of the existing literature suggests that the term "second chance assessment" is synonymous with supplementary assessment, or re-sitting an examination, and is designed for students who have failed. This study has expanded the concept of second chance assessment to mean an assessment practice that focuses on the feedback given between the first and second chance assessment or "feed-forward". In this study, students taking the elective course Property Transactions II in the Postgraduate Certificate in Law at the University of Hong Kong took a first assessment under examination conditions and received group and individual feedback on their performance before they took a second assessment in the format of examination a week later. The feedback given through this second chance assessment improved the overall examination performance of students, most of whom were enthusiastic about the new assessment practice.