Symposium for Teaching and Learning with Technology

Abstract: Computer-based testing (CBT) creates new possibilities for more effective testing and is helpful in courses at all levels of higher education. Instructors can incorporate CBT into their assessment strategies as a way to determine student achievement and to collect feedback on teaching effectiveness. A testing center opened at University Park this fall further facilitates the practice of CBT. The testing center’s mission is to foster innovative assessment practices. The panel will discuss the benefits of using CBT and the testing center as well as the lessons learned when adopting CBT into the course curriculum.

Will Kerr is explaining that the Testing Center at Penn State is a joint venture between Information Technology Services and the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence. The lab was designed to be a quiet, distraction free environment for students to take exams. There are 161 computer stations in the lab. Will says that they like to book 150 stations maximum so students can be moved to open stations in case of technical problems. There are two ways to schedule students, block scheduling and assigned scheduling.

The Testing Center provides a secure testing environment. Student identities are verified. There are 24 video cameras, and the footage from those cameras are kept for about 3 weeks before it is recorded over. Students are assigned seats randomly. Each student can be given a separate test by the use of randomly assigning questions. The Testing Center staff does not proctor tests, but faculty are able to provide proctors, TAs, etc.

Benefits of the Center include allowing more instruction time by scheduling exams outside of class. There are expanded testing options - simulations, audio, video, graphics, and animations. Tests are scored automatically so students can receive immediate feedback.

Christine Masters teaches sophomore level intro engineering courses. These are large enrollment classes. She has roughly 12 sections of the course combines for a total of about 450 students. She uses mostly solution based problems on her exams. These are not high stake exams, instead focusing problems of creativity and design and on how they learn a particular concept in the course. The decision to use the Testing Center was the result of some studies on doing electronic testing for students. The flexibility of the scheduling of the Center works "fabulously" for her. A block of time for an entire week would be reserved, and students are able to schedule any time during that week to take their exam.

Jonathan Mathews teaches one of the sections of EG101, which is a web course. He teaches about 1,000 students per year. He uses the Center for high stakes exams. Due to the large amount of students, the scheduling of all of them via the web was an enormous undertaking. The Center allows for a much more structured way to schedule exams and provides an incredible amount of flexibility. Another main benefit is that because of this being a web course, Jonathan was unable to know who all of his students were. The proctoring aspect of the Testing Center eliminates any issues with that by providing a physical space for students to take his exams.

There is a question asking about the process of setting up exams with the Center. The Center supports platforms including Perception, ANGEL and TestPilot. The staff at the Center are always looking for new software. Right now the split between ANGEL and TestPilot is about 60/40. An exam can be set up in ANGEL and then going through and making a few extra security settings, so that when students log in they are taken directly to the exam. Once the exam is set up, the faculty then work with the staff at the Center on the scheduling.

Christine Masters is talking about how well the electronic tests are working, and good the support she receives from the Center is. Jonathan mentions that students love the flexibility. Chris Brady, in the audience, completely concurs with Jonathan's and Christine's remarks. Will explains that the scheduling software is still being worked on, but at some point in the future an email will be sent to students letting them know when their test is and what materials they may bring with them.

Christine is asked if the Center changed the way she designed her exams. Getting away from paper exams has reduced data reduction significantly. Jonathan has been doing electronic testing for 10 years. Electronic testing is much more desirable to him than traditional forms. Student reaction to taking exams at the Center has been very positive. Students also mentioned that they have more space, there is easy access to their seats, and that they are not disturbed by other students.

There is definite interest among the audience regarding the Testing Center. Questions are being asked about scheduling to use the Center in the fall. Will indicates that he is already getting emails about the fall. There is no lead time for the summer, however. There is a concern from the audience that the demand for fall may fill up all the available time. Will indicates that the demand for fall is much more increased, but the Center can be remain open later and be opened up on Fridays (currently tests are not scheduled on Fridays) to facilitate demand.

A question is asked about how to keep students from telling each other what is on the exam if they are taking the same test at different times. The questions can be randomized on the tests. Through talking with faculty and students, it is not uncommon to find that students may remember particular topics such as "on the test there was a question relating to such and such," but the actual sharing of exact questions is rare.

Jonathan is very pleased with the management of the students when they go to the Center. The verification of identities and getting the students into the lab to take the exam is something that he doesn't have to worry about or deal with once the exam is scheduled. This is a main focus of what the Testing Center wants the faculty to know. The flexibility and convenience of using the Center is a great benefit to faculty - especially those with web-based and large enrollment classes. This is a point that Will is stressing.

Several questions about preventing students from cheating are being asked. Even though the facility is designed to deter cheating, it can't completely stop it. The security features are very prevalent there. Students are assigned to a particular station and are not able to log in to any other stations. Will indicates that they have not actively caught any students cheating yet. Jonathan indicates that he is not too concerned about students cheating on his exams at the Center.

This was a good session with a lot of interaction and questions from the audience. The Testing Center is a great resource to the faculty and has only been officially open since January. I expect it to be heavily used in the near future.