Fig. 1

CBL display in our computer-assisted formative assessment modules. A representative page (in Dutch) from module CAFA 3 – Chromatin that includes certainty-based learning is shown. Only after answering the knowledge question (bottom part, background field) the certainty question (box in the right upper part) appears, and following its completion the scoring box (lower left) appears. The certainty question translates as “indicate how confident you are about your answer: sure (ticked in the example), partly sure, uncertain”. The scoring box displays in the top row the scoring on the current question (in Dutch: “Huidige vraag”) on the knowledge (here “incorrect”) and the certainty (here “sure” or “zeker”) answers, followed by the combined mark (in this case − 6) displayed on the corresponding background (see Additional file 1). The bottom row in the scoring box displays the cumulative score (in Dutch: “Verzamelscore”) that includes the total number of correctly and incorrectly answered knowledge questions (on a green and red background, respectively) and the sum of all individual certainty-based scores (here “-5”)