Assessment

From e-Learning Documentation

Revision as of 18:14, 13 October 2010

Overview

There are two online testing tools in Sakai, Assessments and Tests & Quizzes. You may choose whichever of these tools best meets your needs. In general, Tests & Quizzes offers more function than Assessments, but many people find the Assessments tool more intuitive and easier to use.

The two tools are very different in their approach to online testing.

Assessments REQUIRES the use of Question Pools and those Question Pools MUST be structured in a specific way. Question Pools must contain questions of the same point value and difficulty level. This is a good practice and a helpful way to set up your Question Pools, resulting in a very nicely organized collection of Question Pools. Assessments also has an easy process for assigning an assessment to special needs students that need added time, but there is no option to assign an assessment to a group.

Assessments also offers the option to require students to acknowledge the Honor Pledge before they can submit the assessment. Certain question types, Multiple Choice, True/False, and Essay, can be imported into Assessment from Respondus. Question Pools can be imported from Tests & Quizzes into Assessments.

Probably the biggest limitation of Assessments is that once an assessment has been accessed, even by a Test Drive, that Assessment cannot be edited or deleted. It can only be archived.

Tests & Quizzes offers Question Pools, but does not require their use. You may enter questions directly into an assessment without those questions being assigned to a Question Pool. You can have questions of varied difficulty levels and point values in one Question Pool. You can create Sub-Pools within Question Pools to further aid organization. Question Pools in Tests & Quizzes are associated with the creator's Username, not the course in which the pools were created. So if you are instructor for ABC1234 and CBA4321 and you create five Question Pools in ABC1234, you will also see those five pools when you go to your CBA4321 course. This is helpful in that you always have access to your Question Pools, but it requires you to pay attention to naming conventions. You would not want to name a Question Pool "Exam 1."

Tests & Quizzes offers the added security of limiting an assessment to a specific IP address, or group of IP addresses. You have the ability to show students the statistics on an assessment and individual questions within the assessment. Questions can only be entered manually, or by cutting and pasting a properly formatted text document. An assessment in Tests & Quizzes can be assigned to a group. You can edit many aspects of a published assessment, including the ability to edit a question and regrade the assessment.

Create and Manage Question Pools in Assessments

As noted above, Question Pools are required in Assessments. You must create Question Pools before you may create an assessment.

Create a Question Pool in Assessments

From within the course where you want to create a Question Pool:

1. Click Assessments in the left menu bar.
2. At the top of the Assessments page, click Question Pools
3. Click Add Pool
4. "Pool Title" - enter a descriptive title for this Question Pool
5. "Description" - you may enter a description of this pool if desired. The Content Editor is available if you want to format this text.
6. "Point Value" - you must enter a Point Value that will be applied to every question in this Question Pool. It is not possible to have questions with different point values in the same Question Pool.
7. "Difficulty" - select the difficulty level of the questions in this Question Pool. It is not possible to hvae questions with different difficulty levels in the same Question Pool.
8. Click Done

Add Questions to a Question Pool in Assessments

When the Question Pool is created, you are taken to a screen that allows questions to be added. If you want to add questions to a Question Pool that was previously created, access this screen by clicking Assessments > Question Pools > Hyperlinked Name of Question Pool.

1. Click Add Question
2. Select Question Type
3. Click OK
   • Each question type provides instructions for creating that type of question on the question creation screen.
4. Click Done

Import a Question Pool in Assessments

You may import a properly formatted text document of questions. This process creates a new Question Pool.

1. Using Wordpad or other plain text editor, enter tests questions using the proper format:
2. From within the Question Pool screen (Assessments > Question Pools) click Import
3. Select "Paste Questions & Import"
4. Copy the text from your document and paste it in the box provided in Sakai. Make sure that there is a space between each question.
5. Click OK

If the import was successful a new question pool was created. The newly created Question Pool will be untitled and not have points associated with it. The difficulty level will be at the default, "Level 3." To edit the Question Pool details, click on the "Edit Tool" icon beside the name of the Question Pool. On this screen you are able to rename the Question Pool, provide a Description if desired, enter the Point Value and adjust the Difficulty Level.

Remove, Copy and Move Questions Within Question Pools in Assessments

Remove Questions from Question Pools Assessments

1. Open the Question Pool (Assessments > Question Pools > Click the hyperlinked name of the Question Pool) that contains the question(s) you want to Remove (delete).
2. Check the box next to the name of the question(s) you want to remove.
3. Click Delete
4. In response to the "Are you sure you want to delete the selected questions?" click Delete.

Copy Questions from one Question Pool to Another in Assessments

If you copy a question to a different pool, the question will then appear in both question pools.

1. Open the Question Pool (Assessments > Question Pools > Click the hyperlinked name of the Question Pool) that contains the question(s) you want to copy to a different pool.
2. Check the box next to the name of the question(s) you want to copy.
3. Click Copy to Pool
4. A screen is opened showing all available pools. Select the pool to which you want to copy the question.
5. Click OK.

Move Questions from one Question Pool to Another in Assessments

If you move a question to a different pool, the question will be removed from the original pool and placed in the new pool.

1. Open the Question Pool (Assessments > Question Pools > Click the hyperlinked name of the Question Pool) that contains the question(s) you want to move to a different pool.
2. Check the box next to the name of the question(s) you want to move.
3. Click Move to Pool
4. A screen is opened showing all available pools. Select the pool to which you want to move the question.
5. Click OK

Question Types in Assessments

There are several types of questions available in Assessments. When you create each of these question types, you will be given instructions on how to compose the question if it is not obvious. Below is a brief description of each type and when you might want to use it.

Multiple Choice

There are two types of Multiple Choice questions:

• Single Correct - there is only one acceptable answer
• Multiple Correct, Multiple Selection - there are several options that are considered "correct" and students may choose more than one.

Multiple Choice questions allow for the answers to be randomized each time the question is displayed to a student so that the correct answer is a different option each time. You can also require the students to provide a rationale for their answer so that you can verify that the student knows the answer and isn't just guessing.

True/False

True/False questions ask the student to determine if a statement is true or false.

Essay

Essay questions provide two ways for students to submit their answers.

• A text box with a Content Editor
• The ability to attach a file to the question

The instructor decides to allow one or both of these options. This question type must be manually graded.

Fill In The Blank

Fill in the Blank questions ask the student to insert a word or words into the question text to complete a sentence or paragraph. While this question type is automatically graded, the student's entry must match exactly the option(s) provided by the instructor. There is some flexibility in providing acceptable answers, matching case, etc., but the best practice is to only use this type of question with totally unambiguous test questions.

Matching

Matching type question require that the student matches one term, phrase or image to another. For example, you could insert images of plants and the student would have to choose the name of the plant from a list provided.

Likert Scale

This question type is only available as a Survey question. The participants answer this question using a scale chosen by the instructor, such as: "On a scale of 1-10, what did you think of . . .?"

Task

This question type is exactly like Essay, except that you have the added option to say "No answer is expected for this question." You would use this option if the student was going to be graded on, for example, an in-class performance. This is comparable to the "non-electronic" submission feature in Assignments. This question type must be manually graded.

Create an Assessment in Assessments

Once you have constructed your Question Pools, you can create Assessments. From within the course where you want to create an Assessment:

1. Click Assessments
2. You are taken to the main Assessments page. Click Add.
3. Select from one of three types of assessments:
   • Test - a tool to evaluate student knowledge.
   • Assignment - this option behaves exactly like a Test, but it gives a different icon beside the name of the assessment in the assessment list.
   • Survey - the survey is intended to gather opinions from anonymous users. There are no correct answers or points awarded.
4. "Title" - enter a descriptive title for this assessment
5. Click Add Instructions if you want to give the students additional instructions. By default, the assessment will provide information such as dates available, time limit, attempts allowed, etc.
6. Click Done

Add a Part in Assessments

Every assessment must have at least one Part. You may add many Parts, using them to organize the questions in the assessment. You might have a Part that pulls 10 random easy questions from a Question Pool and a Part that pulls 5 random difficult questions from a different Question Pool. You may add specific instructions for each Part.

To add a Part:

1. Click on the hyperlinked name of the Assessment. Under the heading "Add Parts" you have two options:
   • "Add Manual Select" - this option shows all questions from all pools and allows you to check a box to add this question to the Part.
   1. Click Add Manual Select
   2. "Part Title" - enter a descriptive title for this Part.
      1. Click Add Instructions to provide additional instructions to the Part.
   3. Click Select Questions
   4. Check the box beside the question(s) you want to add to this Part.
      1. To make it easier to locate the question(s) you are looking for, you have the ability to sort the list by Pool, Type and Assessment or Test questions. Sort from the drop-down menu beside each option.
   5. Click Done
   6. Click Done
   • "Add Random Draw" - this option allows you to randomly choose a specific number of questions from a Question Pool. If you have a Question Pool that contains 45 questions, you can give each student 5 randomly drawn so each student could get entirely different questions.
   1. Click Add Random Draw
   2. "Part Title" - enter a descriptive title for this Part.
      1. Click Add Instructions to provide additional instructions to the Part.
   3. All Question Pools will be shown, along with the number of questions, point value and difficulty level. In the "Draw" box, enter the number of questions you want pulled from that Question Pool.
   4. Click Done
   5. Click Done

Give Extra Time to Special Needs Students in Assessments

Publish an Assessment in Tests & Quizzes

Settings in Assessments

Manage Assessments in Assessments

Manage Student Submissions in Assessments

View and Edit Student Submissions in Assessments

Grade Essay and Task Questions in Assessments

View Statistics in Assessments

Export Results in Assessments

Allow Student Retake of an Assessment in Assessments