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| Scalable, Effective Assessment through Computer-based Testing
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Assessment is an important part of education, the part that provides
students feedback on the extent of their learning and, for some
students, their primary source of motivation to engage in a course.
Assessment, however, is one area that historically has been difficult
to scale in larger enrollment classes. In particular, running exams
in large classes presents challenges in dealing with student
conflicts, printing exams, proctoring (often in many rooms), and the
time and effort of grading and the resulting delay in getting feedback
to students. As a result, many large courses have historically run
as few exams as possible and relied heavily on multiple-choice exams,
which can be limited in the kinds of skills that they can assess.
With out Computer-based Testing Facility (CBTF), we're trying to
revolutionize running exams in large STEM courses to make them simultaneously
better for both students and faculty and their course staff. Four
concepts are key to achieving this goal. First, by running the exams
on computers, we can write complex, authentic (e.g., numeric,
programming, graphical, design) questions that are auto-gradable,
allowing us to test a broad set of learning objectives with minimal
grading time and providing students immediate feedback. Second, we
write question generators that use randomness to produce a collection
of problems, allowing us to give each student different questions and
permitting the problem generators to be used semester after semester.
Third, because each student has a unique exam, we allow students to
schedule their exams at a time convenient to them within a specified
day range, providing students flexibility and avoiding the need to
manage conflict exams. Finally, because exam scheduling and
proctoring is completely handled by the CBTF, once faculty have their
exam content, it is no more effort to run more frequent, smaller exams
that reduce student anxiety, as well as offering second-chance exams
to reduce failure rates by allowing struggling students an opportunity
to review and demonstrate mastery of concepts that they missed on an
exam.
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The vision for and operation of a CBTF
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The idea of a Computer-based Testing Facility as the primary solution
for summative assessment in large-enrollment college courses is novel.
As such, we've been documenting our experiences and best practices in
an effort to convince others to consider adopting the practice and to aid
them in doing so.
Making Testing Less Trying: Lessons Learned from Operating a Computer-Based Testing Facility
Craig Zilles, Matthew West, David Mussulman and Tim Bretl (FIE 2018)
Student and Instructor Experiences with a Computer-Based Testing Facility
Craig Zilles, Matthew West, David Mussulman, and Carleen Sacris (EDULEARN 2018)
Computerized Testing: A Vision and Initial Experiences
Craig Zilles, Robert Deloatch, Jacob Bailey, Bhuwan Khattar, Wade Fagen, Cinda Heeren, David Mussulman, and Matthew West (ASEE 2015)
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Learning Analytics
Student Scheduling Preference Modeling
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