Crafting Online Exams In Engineering And Technology: Latest Challenges, Methodologies, And Trends

Abstract

In recent years distance education and learning have emerged as a popular method of instructional delivery in engineering and technology-related fields. Many faculties of engineering and technology may found themselves teaching online classes or thinking about teaching one. In this process, crafting and preparation of online exams without sacrificing the educational quality and exam security is a crucial issue to the faculty. Psychological setbacks and barriers among engineering students also add another concern for the faculty teaching in a distance education environment, i.e., students may have fears of losing partial credit in an online multiple-choice exam. The asynchronous and economical advantages of distance education and learning that make offering and taking them very popular force the profession to reexamine and re-engineer some of these exam-related issues. In this paper we discuss issues as they relate to crafting online exams for the distance learning students in engineering and technology. More specifically, we discuss one major theme: how should faculty craft and design online exams for students studying in engineering and technology-related fields? We use some accurate but crude empirical data and evaluation methodologies to draw our conclusions. The data used are collected from more recent sample courses that have been taught by the authors over the last five years. This facilitates the evaluation of the latest challenges, development of new methodologies, and monitoring the current trends.

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“…There are several challenges to conduct online examination to ensure the educational quality and security cannot be compromised (Malik,2010;Mehrabian, 2008). Further actions need to be consider to deal with students who fear poor performance in the online exam environment (King et al, 2009).…”

Decreasing Student Stress Through Multi-Attempt Digital Engineering Assessments with Rotating Questions

“…Some popular platforms used within the field of engineering education include Canvas, Blackboard, WISEflow, and Moodle. Most LMSs offer space for informational content, homework, and assessments, making it an all-in-one platform that helps simplify assessment distribution and evaluation by collecting digital inputs from users [4], [5]. The statistics provided by an LMS are useful when analyzing a specific instructor-student-content relationship, making it easier to customize the interactive content and optimize the experience of all users.…”