Monthly Archives: August 2011

Open-ended and multiple-choice versions of the same test

I’ve just read an excellent paper. It’s rather old, so old indeed that I might have been one of the ‘first year secondary school pupils’ involved in the evaluation! (though I don’t think that I was). The full reference is: Bishop, … Continue reading

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The testing effect

This will be my final post that picks up a theme from CAA 2011 , but the potential implications of this one are massive. For the past few weeks I have been trying to get my head around the significance of the ideas I was … Continue reading

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Are we assessing what we think we are?

In the past week (when I should have been working at Open University summer school, but got sent home ill) I haven’t felt up to doing a great deal, but I have managed quite a lot of reading. I’ve also … Continue reading

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Poor quality assessment – inescapable and memorable

David Boud famously said ‘Students can, with difficulty, escape from the effects of poor teaching, they cannot (by definition if they want to graduate) escape the effects of poor assessment.’ Boud, D. (1995) Assessment and learning: contradictory or complementary? In … Continue reading

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It’s just not cricket

First of all, for the benefit of those who are not native speakers of English, I ought to explain the meaning of the phrase ‘It’s just not cricket’. The game of cricket carries connotations of being something that is played … Continue reading

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Does a picture paint a thousand words?

One of the things that Matt Haigh looked at when considering the impact of item format (see previous post) was whether the presence of a picture made the question easier or harder. He started with a very simple multiple choice item: Which … Continue reading

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The impact of item format

One of the things I’ve found time and time again in my investigations into student engagement with e-assessment is that little things can make a difference. Therefore the research done by Matt Haigh of Cambridge Assessment into the impact of question … Continue reading

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Automatically generated questions

In describing a presentation by Margit Hofler of the Institute for Information Systems and Computer Media at Graz University of Technology, Austria, the CAA 2011 Conference Chair Denise Whitelock used the words ‘holy grail’ and this is certainly interesting and cutting-edge stuff. … Continue reading

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