Screen-Based Assessment

Swithenby, Stephen

doi:10.11120/ndir.2006.00020023

Cited by 3 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…Swithenby (2006) also listed several drivers for the increasing use of e-assessments. He included both economic (that is, demand for portable qualifications and a cost-effective means of testing) and pedagogical drivers, and the most important pedagogical driver is that of rapid feedback in the form of both marks and comments, since they have the potential for the immediate shaping of learning.…”

Section: Drivers For the Use Of Computer-based Assessmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Automatic Grading of Spreadsheet and Database Skills

Kovačić

Green²

2012

JITE:IIP

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Executive SummaryGrowing enrollment in distance education has increased student-to-lecturer ratios and, therefore, increased the workload of the lecturer. This growing enrollment has resulted in mounting efforts to develop automatic grading systems in an effort to reduce this workload. While research in the design and development of automatic grading systems has a long history in computer education, only a few attempts have been made to automatically assess spreadsheet and database skills. This paper has three purposes: (1) to describe the design of an assessment in the Information Systems course at the Open Polytechnic to assess students' spreadsheet and database skills, (2) to describe the development of an automatic grading system to assess spreadsheet and database skills, and (3) to compare automatic with manual marking to determine if automatic grading system is a feasible method of reducing workload.The automatic grading system we developed uses Excel's user-defined functions to automatically check whether a feature or a function has been used. Since the outcomes from user-defined functions are scrambled, students verify their own answers by entering the results from these functions into an online quiz. As a result, there is no need for the lecturer to download, open, and check the actual software application. The system recognizes correct answers from these scrambled inputs and allocates marks. This system is integrated into the Moodle learning management platform and linked to the students' academic record database.The main difference between the automated grading system for the assessment of spreadsheet and database skills described in this paper and existing systems is that the latter systems require the actual software application to be submitted for marking. The system described in this paper does not require markers to handle the application. Instead, it automatically checks the application while students are working on it, but grading is not performed until students answer specific quiz questions.Practical experience with the automatic grading system has shown that the system significantly decreases turnaround time for the grading of assignments, while providing instant feedback to students on the correctness of their answers. At the same time, the system reduces the workload of the lecturer, freeing lecturers from administration and the time-consuming tasks of checking individual aspects of the spreadsheet and database applications. This allows them to allocate time to student support and other more creaMaterial published as part of this publication, either on-line or in print, is copyrighted by the Informing Science Institute. Permission to make digital or paper copy of part or all of these works for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that the copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage AND that copies 1) bear this notice in full and 2) give the full citation on the first page. It is permissible to abstract these works so long as credit is given. T...

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Section: Drivers For the Use Of Computer-based Assessmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As Swithenby (2006) pointed out, there is still some "cultural antipathy to computer-based assessment." According to this view, the use of computer-based assessments is impersonal, suitable only for the assessment of tasks at a low cognitive level or those that require closed responses.…”

Section: Automatic Grading Of Spreadsheet and Database Skillsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Automatic Grading of Spreadsheet and Database Skills

Kovačić

Green²

2012

JITE:IIP

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“…However opinions of eassessment are mixed: some people are excited about its potential 10 ; others are concerned that eassessment tasks (primarily but not exclusively multiplechoice questions) can encourage a surface approach to learning 3,11 . This paper describes a project, building on work described in Swithenby's review of screenbased assessment 12 , which seeks to develop and evaluate more meaningful eassessment questions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Online interactive assessment with short free-text questions and tailored feedback

Jordan

2016

NEW DIR TEACH PHYS SCI

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A linguistically based authoring tool has been used to write eassessment questions requiring short free-text answers of up to about 20 words in length (typically a single sentence). The answer matching is sophisticated and students are provided with instantaneous targeted feedback on incorrect and incomplete responses. They are able to use this feedback in reattempting the question. Seventy-five questions of this type have been offered to students on an entr-level interdisciplinary science module and they have been well received. Students have been observed attempting the questions and have been seen to respond in differing ways to both the questions themselves and the feedback provided. The answer matching has been demonstrated to be of similar or greater accuracy than specialist human markers.The software described is all either open source or commercially available, but the purpose of this paper is not to advertise these products but rather to encourage reflection on e-assessment’s potential to support student learning.

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“…However opinions of eassessment are mixed: some people are excited about its potential 10 ; others are concerned that eassessment tasks (primarily but not exclusively multiple-choice questions) can encourage a surface approach to learning 3,11 . This paper describes a project, building on work described in Swithenby's review of screen-based assessment 12 , which seeks to develop and evaluate more meaningful eassessment questions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%