So how can you make different variants of interactive computer-marked assignment questions?
Here are some strategies we’ve used:
At the Open University we use different variants of our iCMA questions. So, to take a very simple example, when one student receives the question ‘Evaluate 3 + 7’, another might receive the question ‘Evaluate ‘4 + 5’. In summative use, different variants limit the opportunities for plagiarism. In formative-only use, different variants provide students with extra opportunities for practice. Continue reading
Writing about the various terms used to describe e-assessment made me realise just how littered with adjectives the whole area of assessment is.
We have formative, summative, thresholded and diagnostic assessment.
We have peer assessment and self assessment, and when you’re assessing yourself against previous performance, the assessment becomes ipsative. Continue reading
We use ‘e-assessment’ to mean different things, but we also use a variety of terms to describe e-assessment!
We have CAA (computer-aided assessment), or is it CAA (computer-assisted assessment); CMA (computer-marked assessment), or is it CMA (computer-mediated assessment). Continue reading
Again, I feel I ought to define my terms before going any further.
The broadest definition of e-assessment encompasses the use of computers for any assessment-related activity, thus it might include the electronic submission of tutor-marked assignments, the marking of student engagement with a tutor group forum or the compilation and grading of an e-portfolio. I have interests in all of these aspects. However much of work I have done relates to the online delivery and automatic marking of questions, with the provision of immediate feedback, in Open University interactive computer-marked assignments (iCMAs) so this is the area I can speak about with most authority.
I’ve just read a paper by Pachler et al (Computers & Education 54 (2010) pp715-721) which describes aspects of the JISC-funded project ‘Scoping a vision of formative e-assessment’. The paper starts by considering different perspectives on the ‘nature and value of formative e-assessment’. I’m sure it should have occurred to me before (but hadn’t!) that ‘formative (e)assessment’ can mean a range of different things. The emphasis might be on
The paper goes on to make the key point that ‘no technology-based assessment is in itself formative, but almost any technology can be used in a formative way – if the right conditions are set in place.’ In other words, the technology isn’t the thing that makes learning happen, it’s student engagement that matters. Amen to that.
Before I get side-tracked down any more avenues related to assessment, I feel I should say a bit more about my choice of title for this blog. My first idea for a title was (e)assessment (f)or learning (with the bracketed ‘e’ indicating that whilst most of my work is in e-assessment, I am interested in more general issues in assessment) but that looked too messy, hence the current title, e-assessment (f)or learning.
Chris’s interesting post ‘Feedback on students’ assignments’ on Mikris’s Blog has made me think some more.
Is this ‘what do we mean by feedback’ stuff more than semantics? Continue reading
What follows is an example of a very simple investigation into student engagement with e-assessment. Continue reading
Assessment experts get terribly excited about the effectiveness, or otherwise, of feedback. We like to think that our ideas in this area are new, but they’re not. This afternoon I was re-reading the paper by Arkalgud Ramaprasad (first published in Behavioral Science back in 1983) which, in my interpretation, says that information provided can only be described as feedback when it makes a difference. Continue reading
