Comparing three online testing modalities: Using static, active, and interactive online testing modalities to assess middle school students' understanding of fundamental ideas and use of inquiry skills related to ecosystems

Abstract

Online testing holds much promise for assessing students' complex science knowledge and inquiry skills. In the current study, we examined the comparative effectiveness of assessment tasks and test items presented in online modules that used either a static, active, or interactive modality. A total of 1,836 students from the classrooms of 22 middle school science teachers in 12 states participated in the study as part of normal classroom activities. Students took assessments in the three different modalities on three consecutive days. The assessments tested key concepts about ecosystems and students' ability to use inquiry skills in an ecosystems context. Our in‐depth analyses focused on how the different modalities elicited specific content knowledge of ecosystems (e.g., producers, consumers, predator–prey relationships) and specific inquiry skills (e.g., designing and interpreting experiments). We also investigated student use of technology supports, such as replaying animations or inspecting graphs. The results showed that the interactive modality enabled the testing of more complex reasoning and that additional experience working in the online environment improved student performance for all the modalities, especially for the interactive modality. Each of the three modalities provided useful information about students' understanding of ecosystems and related inquiry skills as well as their misconceptions. The study begins to build a knowledge base of what types of science knowledge and skills may be effectively measured in three different modalities of online assessment. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 51: 523–554, 2014

Mediating Test Anxiety through the Testing Effect in Asynchronous, Objective, Online Assessments at the University Level

“…Radical change in the context of assessment arguably signals radical change in correlates, such as, test anxiety. Again, however, we struggle to gauge this effect (Stowell and Bennett, 2010;Cassady, 2010;DeBoer, Quellmalz, Davenport, Timms, Herrmann-Abell, Buckley, & Flanagan, 2014; Kena et al, 2014). This paper speaks to a facet of this gap.…”

“…Similarly, ongoing test anxiety fan mental health difficulties, peer detachment, and class disengagement (Hoffman, 2015). The social dynamics of online education-intrinsic impersonality and benign anonymity among cyber-dispersed students often completing work asynchronously-aggravate these circumstances as well as create new contingencies (Stowell & Bennett, 2010;DeBoer et al, 2014;Kena et al, 2014;Paolini, et al, 2016).…”

Pacing, Pixels, and Paper: Flexibility in Learning Words from Flashcards

“…Likewise, interactive online assessments result in more complex reasoning when compared to static or less active online assessments (DeBoer et al, 2014). Despite generally positive support, there are some mixed opinions on the value of interactivity (e.g., Bezjian-Avery, Calder, & Iacobucci, 1998;Ghose & Dou, 1998).…”

Enhancing a Computer-Based Testing Environment with Optimum Item Response Time

“…Schatz and Browndyke (2002) pointed that "computer and Internet technologies have moved from 'emergent' status to 'current' acceptance" (p. 405). Hence, it would not become an issue for test takers to be tested on computers as long as the medium of questions' presented is appropriate (Deboer et al, 2014;Weinerth et al, 2014). Similarly, Ricketts and Wilks (2002) stated that "computer-based assessment is generally acceptable to students" (p. 478).…”

“…When students use a new environment, they may face some challenges. Hence, the researcher kept the computer-based testing environments very simple to avoid cognitive challenges as Deboer et al (2014) suggested.…”