Author Archives: Sally Jordan

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

Posted in bias, fairness | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

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

Posted in item format, picture, question difficulty | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

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

Posted in conferences, item format, question difficulty | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

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

Posted in Automatically generated questions, conferences | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Assessing Open University students – at residential schools and otherwise

I was due to be tutoring at the Open University residential school SXR103 Practising Science at the University of Sussex (shown left; the crane is a reminder of the huge amount of building work that is going on) for two … Continue reading

Posted in Open University, Residential schools | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Happy birthday blog!

It seems hard to believe that I’ve been blogging on assessment, especially e-assessment, and especially the impact of e-assessment on students, for a year now. Even more amazing is the fact that there is still so much I want to … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Answer matching for short-answer questions: simple but not that simple

In describing our use of  (simple) PMatch for answer matching for short-answer free-text questions, I may have made it sound too simple. I’ll give two examples of the sorts of things you need to consider: Firstly, consider the question shown … Continue reading

Posted in short-answer free text questions | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Can online selected response questions really provide useful formative feedback?

The title of this post comes from the title of a thoughtful paper from John Dermo and Liz Carpenter at CAA 2011. In his presentation, John asked whether automated e-feedback can create ‘moments of contingency?’ (Black & Wiliam 2009). This is something I’ve … Continue reading

Posted in conferences, feedback | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Are you sure?

For various reasons I’ve been thinking a lot recently about confidence-based marking.  (Tony Gardner-Medwin, who does most of the work in this area also calls it ‘certainty-based marking’). The principle is that you get most marks for a correct response … Continue reading

Posted in confidence-based marking | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Let students not technology be the driver

Just home from CAA 2011 (the International Computer Assisted Assessment Conference in Southampton). The attendance was quite low ( probably a victim of the current economic climate) but the conference was good, with some very thoughtful presentations and extremely useful conversations. … Continue reading

Posted in conferences | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment