Assesslog

Still thinking about this 2006 video from Teachers TV: http://www.teachers.tv/video/5431

Having already touched on the challenge of gaining stakeholders’ trust in the capability of e-assessment in my previous post, there were a few more issues raised in the programme that were highly relevant to the topics we’ve discussed so far in this unit, and also to my own experience:

One central theme of the programme was validity of assessment; the narrator begins by questioning the validity of assessing students in isolation by means of pen and paper examinations. As Hal Maclean from Ultralab states; “Society has moved on since this was a valid way to test children”. I would add adults to that as well!

One example given in the programme of how technology is enabling dramatic change in assessment practices is the use of oral assessment via mobile phones. The researchers felt that it might be more appropriate for young people to express what they’ve learned orally, through a medium that they’re familiar and at ease with (which makes sense). This form of assessment also offers the learner choice about and where to complete the activity. As an aside, it was interesting that the researchers found that students had a preference for a female robotic voice – it makes sense that the impersonal effect created by a robotic voice might reduce performance anxiety.

We’ve certainly spoken a lot about the validity and fitness-for-purpose of timed, written tests throughout this unit. One can see how being able to recall information, explain things and justify one’s actions orally is important – and, as adults in the world of work, whenever we have to do this in an instant manner it tends to be orally. Of course, being able to show understanding and justify one’s actions in writing is also important, but one rarely has to do this rapidly, in isolation and without anything to refer to.

Other alternatives to the pen-and-paper medium include electronic content submitted via PDAs and other mobile devices, and computer-based tests.

Computer-based objective tests not only offer massive gains in terms of efficiency of marking and quality of statistical output, but they also allow tests to be personalised. Different questions to test the same skill mean that students cannot copy from each other, and adaptive functionality ensures that students are appropriately challenged and tested at the right level. There is also the potential here, as with most forms of e-assessment, for the student to choose when they want to be assessed. Computer-based testing also enables the provision of instant feedback. These are key ideas that we’ve discussed within the unit to date – reliability, differentiation, personalisation & instant feedback. I liked the example given in the programme about computer games; that children & young people play them because they are challenging, and they can immediately learn from their mistakes and correct them to progress quickly. It’s very interesting that computer games generally get quite a bad press among parents and teachers – perhaps some of this could be (subconsciously) fuelled by envy of the games’ ability to capture their child’s or pupils’ attention far more effectively than they are capable of doing…?!

We currently offer objective computer-based tests on the ICM programme for our students to test their understanding of key concepts within the subject area of their study modules. Some of them I would judge to be ‘better’ than others – i.e. the ones that have adaptive capability, and provide more detailed feedback with a prompt to try again. Perhaps if/when we get more human resource allocated to online tutoring we’ll be able to make wider use of these formative assessment opportunities. The personalised assessment tasks I mentioned in my previous post could also be designed as low-stakes formative assessment with instant feedback.

More later… still have some ideas to come about ranking over numerical marking, and the assessment of process through PDAs – more of the topics covered in the programme…