See Higher Education Academy Psychology Network Website

Methodology

In addressing the question of students' experiences of and attitudes towards online assessments, students across 3 modules (2 at the University of Bolton, 1 at the University of Bath) were asked to take online MCQ assessments as part of their module assessment, and invited subsequently to answer a number of questions probing their perceptions of online assessments.

In addressing the question of whether online/offline assessment contexts might differentially affect performance, students on 1 module at the University of Bolton were assigned to take an MCQ assessment either online or offline (in a traditional pen and paper format). The performance of these 2 groups is compared.

In order to address the question of whether individual differences may affect performance on online assessments, all students involved in taking online and offline MCQ assessments in the 3 modules concerned were also been invited to answer a computer attitudes scale (including measures of anxiety, engagement and addiction). We considered whether there is evidence of any relationship between levels of computer anxiety as measured by this scale and performance on and/or attitudes towards online assessments. We also considered whether biosocial factors were related to attitudes or performance in any way.

Current State of Progress

Work on the project commenced in April 2004. The project is now finished. A preliminary report of the analysis of the data obtained was summarised in a short progress report, published in the November 2004 edition of the (then) LTSN newsletter.

Further data was collected between February and March, 2005 in order to increase the sample size for the offline versus online comparison, and this data has now been included in the analysis.

See below for details of outcomes delivered from this project.

Examples of Online Assessments Used

An example online MCQ assignment used in this study is available here. This mock-up version will not cause any data to be submitted, but will score the assignment. The ID 'guest' will be accepted, but scoring is enabled without a valid ID in this example.

Project Outputs

The MCQ tool developed and assessed in this project is now available online at: www.claireraq.myzen.co.uk/LTSNproject/MCQtool/

The following papers have been produced from this project

Hewson, C. (2012). Can online course-based assessment methods be fair and equitable? Relationships between students' preferences and performance within online and offline assessments. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2729.2011.00473.x. ISSN: 1365-2729.

Hewson, C. (2007). Web-MCQ: A Set of Methods and Freely Available Open Source Code for Administering Online Multiple Choice Question Assessments. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments & Computers, 39(3), 471-481.

Hewson, C., Charlton, J., & Brosnan, M. (2007). Comparing online and offline administration of multiple choice question assessments to psychology undergraduates: do assessment modality or computer attitudes influence performance? Psychology Learning and Teaching, 6(1), 37-46.