Digital forms of assessment & examinations
Trials are underway to determine the viability of digital forms of assessment and examinations for selected Western Australian Certificate of Education (WACE) courses.
The trials are based on a successful research project into assessment of practical performance using digital forms undertaken by University of London Professor Richard Kimbell and Tony Wheeler.
The research sought to address the problem that student performance in many subjects is difficult to capture using paper and pen in three hours.
The premise of the research is that students need assessment opportunities that are authentic, reliable and manageable to judge.
The research included a new approach to marking that is centred on multiple intersecting holistic judgements based on work early in the 1900s by Thurstone and, more recently, by Pollitt. It involves the law of comparative judgement applied to comparative pairs methodology with Rasch modelling analysis.
Associate Professor Paul Newhouse and Dr John Williams from the Centre for Schooling and Learning Technology at Edith Cowan University said Professor Kimbell had agreed to work with them and share his findings.
The two academics are coordinating a Western Australian trial using two new Curriculum Council courses; Applied Information Technology and Engineering Studies.
A/Prof Newhouse said examples of digital forms for performance assessment included students recording performance in digital video or audio, completing tasks at computer workstations and compiling electronic portfolios.
"The application to Western Australia is exciting because Professor Kimbell has proved the concept, created a prototype system and been funded to create a nationally scalable system for the United Kingdom in two subjects," he said.
"In the UK research, student work was collected using personal digital assistants (PDAs) that included a digital sketchbook, notebook, camera and voice memo.
"Student work was represented as an e-portfolio on a website that could be assessed by all markers and marking time proved equivalent to the current marking system.
"We need to explore the potential to enhance the practical performance components of our courses in Western Australia.
"Throughout next term, some teachers of the Applied Information Technology and Engineering Studies courses will be using some of these different assessment techniques," A/Prof Newhouse said.
Curriculum Council chief executive officer, David Wood, said there was a lot of appeal to use online assessment and examinations in courses such as Applied Information Technology (AIT).
