Many instructors are struggling with how to accurately and fairly to assess their students in an online learning environment. Although the subject matter of their lesson plan may remain close to an in-person classroom, the techniques and ways to monitor and ultimately grade student progress can be more challenging online.
Higher education teachers are finding it harder to accurately assess how a student is progressing in an online forum, said Wendy Tietz, PhD, CPA, CPA, CGMA, CSCA, and a professor in the Department of Accounting in the College of Business Administration at Kent State University, during the “12 Tips for Assessment in an Online Environment” session at the REMOTE: The Connected Faculty Summit. She was joined by Tracie L. Miller-Nobles, CPA, and Associate Professor, Austin Community College.
Tip 1: Give exams during scheduled class time.
“We are talking about assessment in the online environment and it's very different than in the classroom. And the first tip is to give exams during your scheduled class time. So even if you're online, if you have a scheduled class time, if you have all the students take the exam at the same time that prevents them from helping each other, because they're taking the exam then,” Tietz said. She also said she opens her exam time 5-10 minutes before the class starts and closes it 5-10 minutes after class ends in case students have any connection issues they have the time to work that out and still have the allotted time to take the exam.
“You also need to remember, even though I have this tip here and it seems very farm and very objective that we need to be cognizant that some students may not have the same Internet speed or the same connection that others do. So, you do still have to be willing to make accommodations for those students,” she said.
Tip 2: Design exams to take the entire class period.
“Make your exam fit the time period that you are giving it,” Tietz said. Students need to know how much time they have to take the exam and whether or not they will be pressed for time, she said. Tietz suggests instructors take the tests themselves a few days after creating it and then triple that time for the student.
Tip 3: Use pooled questions.
Using pooled questions helps instructors differentiate exams without changing the actual subject matter. “In many, if not all of the publisher platforms, you can do pooled questions. So that’s a really a nice way to give a comparable exam. What I do with pulled questions is there's typically a history of how long each question takes and the difficulty score. So, I try to group like questions together, but each student is getting slightly different [question],” Tietz said.
Added Miller-Nobles, “We really rely heavily on the use of pooling our algorithmic questions, but if your learning management system or your publisher software does not allow you to create algorithmic questions, you can then just simply create pools to accomplish the same thing, “ she said adding that she will go through and find questions based on learning objectives and then create a pool of questions based on those learning objectives.
Tip 4: Create algorithmic questions.
“If you have a quantitative field at all, create your questions using formulas so that each student's exam is different. So, I can deliver all the same questions, but they all have different numbers,” said Tietz, adding that many of the publisher platforms also allow for the creation of algorithmic questions.
Tip 5: Create pools of algorithmic questions.
This is used frequently, specifically in the accounting discipline, according to Miller-Nobles. “Because many of our questions on our stance are quantitative in nature, we really rely heavily on the use of pooling our algorithmic questions. But if your learning management system or your publisher software does not allow you to create algorithmic questions, you can then just simply create pools to accomplish the same thing,” She will often go through and find questions based on learning objectives and then create a pool of questions based on those learning objectives.
Tip 6: Randomize multiple choice answers.
“If you're using a series of testing questions or maybe you're creating your own questions, we always encourage our faculty to scramble the answer order for each student,” Miller-Nobles said. “That doesn’t eliminate [cheating] but it decreases the ability for them to call each other and say, ‘here's the answers I got’.”
Tip 7: Be consistent with due dates and stagger due dates.
“We like to have our due dates set up so that students are working throughout the week. We may say that homework is due each Friday at 11:00, quizzes are due each Saturday at 11:00 p.m. So, students know ahead of time exactly what the due dates are going to be, and they know exactly when each of the different types of assignments are due,” Miller-Nobles said.
Tip 8: Use a remote proctoring service.
Remote proctoring is exactly what Austin Community College does in its accounting department, according to Miller-Nobles. “We offer a program where our students have to be proctored and it actually has to be a live proctoring service,” she said, adding they use a variety of systems such as ProctorU and Respondus Lock Down. However, she warns that students need to know before registering what system will be used to ensure it is compatible with their technology.
Tip 9: Give a practice quiz online before an exam.
“This works really well for when we do our proctoring service because students can do a practice in that proctoring environment before they take the exam,” Miller-Nobles said. “It allows the students the ability to try out the assessment online before it actually counts for them. And they can get comfortable and familiar with what the assessment and exam services going to look like.”
Tip 10: Assign a lot of homework.
While Tietz said she doesn’t use proctoring because her main concern is not students cheating, she does give a lot of homework in various formats in an attempt to help the students learn the material. “We give exams to encourage students to study, to learn the material. I thought, well, I'm going to start giving them credit for doing the practice. So, I have a lot of different types of homework assignments. I'm giving the assignments in a lot of different modalities so that students can get it from all different angles,” she said.
Tip 11: Google that question.
“If you're putting in a question that you used before or is coming from a test bank or someone else, Google the question. Chances are you're going to find it on the Internet with little effort. So, spend time editing the questions just to make it different.” Tietz said.
Tip 12: Realize some cheating will occur.
Both Tietz and Miller-Nobles said that in an online environment, there is no doubt some cheating will occur. However, instead of focusing on that, instructors should create a curriculum that meets the needs of their diverse students and create rigorous exams but prepare the students well for them.