Cultus
Hours upon hours of a teacher’s time can be consumed by planning and assessing student achievements. Assessing what and how a student is learning can be difficult for numerous reasons because multiple methods of testing come into play:
- Identifying what students know and understand about a topic;
- Identifying what needs to be reviewed;
- Summarizing what has been learned and ensuring that the concepts were understood correctly.
These three factors are the components of assessing and evaluating a student’s comprehension of different topics and teachers are utilizing test generator software as a resource.
One of the most popular online tests is the computer adaptive testing that test generator software uses. The computer adaptive testing method is dependent on the student’s answers. Based on their response, the questions can get harder or easier, allowing teachers the opportunity to see exactly what concepts their students are struggling with. The computer adaptive testing method shows the strengths and weaknesses, not only on a class level, but on an individual basis too.
A study completed in 2009 showed that a “high exposure to the online instrument robustly leads to higher student learning” (Angus & Watson, 2009). This is true largely in part to the way that tests are read by the online test software.
In years past, teachers would take their red pen to students test and mark them correct or incorrect. They had no way of knowing why an answer was wrong, how the student came to their conclusion or how long it took the student to answer the problem.
Online test generator software changes the way teachers interact with the testing process. Teachers can now watch a test being taken in real time, can analyze where a student may be falling short and can better gear their lectures to benefit the students learning process.
Online testing can assist teachers, simulate students, and make the testing process more efficient:
Test creation is quick and painless. Items can be copied with little to no effort and templates can be saved, making future tests even easier to create. Some test generator software designs even allow or randomized questions, making cheating virtually impossible.
Test giving can happen anywhere, at any time. Online testing means that there is not a need for students to be gathered together in a testing room situation. With a simple login code, students can retrieve the test and take it at their convenience.
Test grading has never been easier on the teachers. Instead of a stack of tests that teachers need to take home to grade, the results are almost immediate and organized in a data file. Students can also instantly see their grade, leaving the stress of wondering how well they did behind.
Analysis reports are automatically generated. These reports allow the teacher to see which students are struggling, which are excelling and where the class as a whole has not grasped a topic or concept. Many test generators also show in-depth information, such as the average amount of time students took on a particular question.
E-Learning is becoming more and more popular as more teachers and school districts grasp and utilize the technology that students already love to use. There are more pros than cons to online testing, like ProProfs test services and studies have proven that students prefer online tests to traditional paper testing.
About the Author:
Sameer Bhatia is founder & CEO of ProProfs.com which is a leading provider of online learning tools for building, testing, and applying knowledge.Sameer has a background in technology with a Masters in Computer Science from USC (University Of Southern California) and is an ed-tech industry veteran.