Online Assessment Blog

The advancement of technology into the educational classroom has presented a challenge to the traditional classroom teacher, while those who have recently completed college and entered the classroom are excited about using technology, but feels challenged by the lack of equipment and devices to put instructional technology to use. This is presenting an opportunity for online-distance learning.  With this new opportunity comes a new responsibility of assessing online learners.

According to Horton (2012) assessment is a part of the beginning course objectives.  The instructor must determine the learners’ pre-knowledge of the course objectives. Additional tests of various types are administered throughout the course based on each objective. This can be only one assessment item per objective. The final assessment will determine if the learner has been successful based on the learner's ability to incorporate the learning from the course with pre-knowledge and how it can or will be used in the workforce (Horton, 2012).

A blended model of education is being modeled across America.  While many students continue to attend physical schools many are choosing to take courses online. This model is being implemented with single students or with small groups.  Enrollments in virtual schools are on the increase and will continue to increase as technology advances.  At present 61% of the virtual learning enrollments are at the high school level.  They credit this to the need for foreign language courses (Weil, 2008).

Online classrooms have presented a challenge for assessing students.  One great concern is cheating and plagiarism.  Online courses in colleges and universities have exploded since 2000.  This brings with it many areas of concern, one being student assessment.  Many teachers and professors are concerned with academic integrity among students concerning cheating and plagiarism. While others advocate that if assignments are designed with proper assessments or questions at various intervals during the course and various means of assignments cheating would be no more prevalent in online courses than in the traditional classroom. Gibson and Blackwell recommend what they call the UFO approach.  This approach uses several different methods and times during the course that they call Cyberspace Assessment.  This approach is unique, frequent, and provides opportunities. They reiterated that students that are going to cheat will cheat wherever their assessments are taken. This should not prevent learners from taking online courses (Gibson & Blackwell, 2007).  This should not prevent instructors from providing online courses.

A study performed by C. Hewson shows that there is little, if any, variance between online and offline assessment. According to this study only a few studies show a difference in course based assessments for online or offline courses. This author believes that instructor and student attitudes affect the assessment method and should be taken into consideration when planning online assessment methods (Hewson, 2012).

Much research has been done on assessing online learning. This study of online learning covered the strategies, challenges, and opportunities of online learning. It proposed the question, “How do I know what my online students have learned” (Kelly, n.d)? He concluded that there are no simple answers and that as courses change so will assessment methods. From these studies one can determine that methods of assessment must be built into the objectives at the beginning of the course and may vary from student to student in the process of the course.

References

Gibson, J., & Blackwell, C. (2007). The Challenge of Student Assessment In The Online Classroom. College Teaching Methods & Styles Journal, 3(4), 1-7.

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, 28(5), 488-498.

Kelly, R. (0). Assessing Online Learning: Strategies, Challenges and Opportunities. Faculty Focus, Special Report, 1-20.

Weil, M. (2009, February 2). The Blended Classroom Revolution: Virtual Technology Goes to School. Tech & Learning, February, 28-32.