I’ve posted a sample of an e-learning assessment activity to my WebCT account.

I’ve chosen to do a self-assessed quiz that incorporates a number of different question-and-answer strategies: multiple choice, matching, short answer, and short essay. I’ve also incorporated feedback for the student whenever possible.

The set-up for the quiz includes the following options:

• Deliver questions one at a time
• Timed (30 minutes)
• Unlimited attempts allowed (questions randomized for each attempt; minimum attempt time of 10 minutes)
• Student score released
• Statistics released

The goals here are fairly simple. Gibbs and Simpson (2004) indicate that student learning behavior is heavily drive by assessment (p 4). Hence, the first goal is to assess the most critical learning components. Furthermore, they state that high-quality feedback is strongly and positively correlated with learning. So the goal is to incorporate as much feedback as possible. This includes the very basic feedback of students seeing what they answered correctly and what they answered incorrectly, and a more advanced level of providing feedback on each answer to selected questions.

Also, Gibbs and Simpson make it clear that formative assessment is a very powerful means of ensuring that learning is occurring … so I’ve set this up during the course as a formative assessment exercise, not at the end of the course as a summative test at the end of a unit.

A benefit of using ICT technology for assessment like this, provided it is set up properly, is that every student can receive feedback on their performance … something that would be more difficult to achieve with in-person or non-ICT forms of assessment. Note however that this increase in scale of assessment comes with a concomitant decrease in the personalization of assessment, a negative that must be taken into account and compensated for elsewhere in the course.

Of critical importance to me as the instructor is not just that students are able to assess their own level of learning but that I can get a good picture of how well students are progressing – both individually and as a whole. Fortunately, WebCT has build capabilities into the system to enable me to review student performance in Assessment Manager. I can view student’s responses individually or as a group, and I can track performance across all students for a single question fairly easily. I can also review reports that give me a visual snapshot of student performance. All of these can be used to refocus teaching to compensate for any systemic deficiencies, or provide personal and more extensive feedback on an individual basis where students may require.

A few final notes: I set up the quiz to deliver questions one at a time so that students can focus on each question individually. Timing is set up to encourage some level of pre-knowledge of the subject matter before taking the quiz. Unlimited attempts are allowed, and the final grade is an average of all attempts, because I do not want to penalize poor test takers. And finally, both the student score and statistics are released so that students can self-assess their performance.

References:

Gibbs, G., & Simpson, C. (2005). Conditions under which assessment supports students’ learning. Retrieved June 23, 2009, from The Open University: http://www.open.ac.uk/fast/pdfs/Gibbs%20and%20Simpson%202004-05.pdf