Student decides date of exam himself
- Five study programmes have started flexible testing on an individual level
- In the pilot, students can have an exam on a date of his own choice
The pilot will be held in the third and fourth test periods. Last month, around twenty students have done an individual flexible test. These were digital, automatically (from Surpass) assessed tests, with multiple choice questions or questions with one written answer. The tests could be done on three moments each week at the Test Service Centre (TSC) in the D-building.
The possibility is offered at several first year’s courses from the study programmes Nursing, Teacher Education in Physical Education (Calo), Industrial Engineering and Management, Communication, and teacher education in Geography, according to Project Manager Frank Sturrus. If the student already knows the course materials, he could enrol for the flexible test prior to the classical test. This is, at the latest, possible five workdays in advance via Sharenet.
Flexible testing is only possible at tests of which the testing database has a lot of questions, three to five times the number of questions in the test. It will prevent students from sharing all questions with others.
The student will afterwards automatically see what the correct answers were and how many were correct. He will then receive a final grade from the lecturer on Educator.
The possibility for the students to indicate if they want to talk to the lecturer about individual questions will be looked at during the pilot. This possibility could then be replacing the classical examination inspection.
If the pilot proves to be successful, it will be expanded over more courses and study programmes after the Summer. Sturrus: “We want to expand flexible testing as a part of spreading tests in the new educational concept. We think that students also want this themselves, and it will particularly be a good addition for retakes of exams.”
If the individual flexible testing becomes a hit, the capacity of the Test Service Centre will need to be expanded. Around two hundred spots with special computers are available there at the moment.
Sturrus: “Who knows, perhaps in the future it will be possible for the students to do digital tests at their own laptop, where the test will be imported through a protected connection.” (EM)
