Overview
A computer based exam is an exam which replaces the more traditional paper based exam and may or may not involve the use of a remote indivigulator to monitor the student/s during the completion of the task.
Engagement
The provision of computer based exams provide students with a contemporary and flexible method of completing assessment tasks. This approach is more in keeping with the ways that students complete other assessment tasks (i.e. with computers) and is a more flexible practice than the requirement for students to travel to their nearest exam centre to sit a paper based exam.
In Practice
Subject
HIP 202: Research for Health Practice
Teaching staff
Dr. Kylie Murphy
Motivation
HIP202 Research For Health Practice is a second year common subject undertaken by most students within the school of Community Health at CSU. The aim of this subject is to begin these students on the journey to becoming evidence based health practitioners. This subject is designed to provide students with an introductory experience to utilising information and research and applying this knowledge to the specific problems of their health discipline/s. Throughout this subject students are taught to, and get the chance to implement a range of skills including the development of sophisticated database search terms (including Boolean operators) creating and saving database permalinks, understanding the structure and function of a wide range of qualitative and quantitative research approaches and associated documentation. Students become skilled at doing all of these things to solve authentic problems over the course of the subject, so the apparent misalignment between the subject and it’s main assessment task, a paper based exam, were clear. Providing students with a large collection of printed resources was both in-authentic and wasteful.
Implementation
Creating a suitable replacement task for this paper based exam revolved around firstly determining alignment between subject outcomes, the assessable components in question and then ensuring that students could access a fair and well designed assessment which was supported by current CSU platforms. In the end, the Interact2 test centre was chosen as the platform because of the support available and (through an extended period of testing and trialing) the ability to remove technical glitches. Over 190 students completed the assessment task simultaneously in a three hour period during exam week in July 2016, with all three student cohorts reporting an increased satisfaction of the subject and the assessment practices, as measured by the student experience survey. Key messages from this implementation process:
- A team development process is crucial-as the academic, developing and building a vision for what you want to achieve in innovating in your assessments is crucial, but getting people around you so that you can access the right skills at the right time is key-your educational designer can support you with project management on these larger tasks.
- Sustainability versus ‘do-ability’-at some point, when you have less support, will you be able to carry out some of the trouble shooting yourself? Investing time upfront in understanding how the system will work will gain you time in the long term.
- Starting point-critically analyse what you are offering as assessment, not just how you are offering it-consider all parts when undertaking assessment changes-who, what, when, where, how, why…and for who.
- Be explicit in linking between learning outcomes and design of the e-exam-particularly useful so that students could see why the changes were being made in this research and information literacy subject
- Integrate the e-exam into the delivery of the subject i.e. providing advance notice through announcements, practice e-exams, pre-emptive student troubleshooting tips, familiarisation. In essence, consider the user experience of your e-exam.
Guide
If you are looking to implement a computer based exam within your subject/s, there are some important considerations to make when planning this approach:
- Integrity - Given that many exams at CSU are relatively high stakes, it is important to take into account the ways which you will maintain the integrity of the assessment task so that students are assessed on a level playing field. If you are planning on utilizing the increasing range of remote invigilator services available (see here) these concerns are somewhat minimized as the student’s identification will be verified by the invigilator.
- Design - If you are not planning on utilising these kinds invigilator services, the design of the exam can increase the integrity of the assessment. For example, an exam containing extended answer sections to complement multiple choice questions gives you as the assessor greater opportunity to cross reference any work against the student’s prior performance within the subject.
- Exam platform - It is possible to build an effective e-exam within the interact2 test environment. A growing practice is the creation of one overall exam which consists of several ‘tests’, each of which can only be accessed once the previous one has been reviewed and submitted. This has several advantages including the fact that you can choose to make students complete the exam in a specified or random order, and as a result it minimises chances for integrity breaches. In addition, there are a range of functionalities such as the ability to store audio, video and files within the test environment, these being available from other areas of your subject site. Additionally, utilizing the supported test centre functionalities within interact2 means that you can schedule specific opening and closing times for these assessment tasks, meaning that support can be organised around this timeframe.
- Another effective safeguard in ensuring integrity is undertaking a range of pre-moderation activities. In a typical exam environment, students will be presented with the same scenario. In an e-exam, it is possible to present a range of scenarios in which students are asked to apply knowledge and skills. Key to this is the development and pre-moderation of a range of equivalent scenarios that students must respond to. The alternative to this aspect is providing one scenario but a range of ways to respond. Building a range of options makes it harder for collusion to occur, but it is important to follow a rigorous pre- moderation process.
- There are other non-supported technologies for offering e-exams, but utilising these is problematic as they will not link to CSU systems such as grade centre. In some situations bespoke solutions can be created in order to embed currently unsupported software platforms, but this process requires an extensive planning and implementation time frame.
Tools
Interact2 - various tools including Test Centre and Grade Centre are important in the design and development of your computer based exam.
Content Creation - you may need to utilise a range of tools including word processing programs such as Word or Pages. Alternatively, Test Centre does have a range of content creation tools including Word/Audio/Video which can be deployed in the test environment.