Computer Assisted Testing: the quote that started me thinking

FROM:"College Mathematics: Suggestions on How to Teach It"

Undergraduate Committee on the Teaching

of Undergraduate Mathematics

Mathematical Association of America

March 1979

"Just when you have become established as the student's staunch ally, you are obliged to shift into the role of judge and jury and, it may be, executioner."

This is the statement that turned my attention to Computer Assisted Testing! If we could substitute the machine for the human, students could rely on us always without worrying about our chameleon status. We would always be on their side!

If the computer says a student is wrong, the student is likely not to be angry at the machine, but perhaps at him/her self. Perhaps, the student will self-assess and recognize that s/he is not well prepared. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

In essence, the idea of CAT is the idea of making the measurement better rather than eliminating it in favor of "school of education" measures such as portfolios, etc.. You can argue about the content of tests, but whatever it is you want students to demonstrate that they know, you need a tool for assessing that knowledge which is unprejudiced, treats all students identically, and judges correctly. It may, repeat may, offer help to students who make a mistake, provided of course that such help is available to all and any students. This last part is solely at the discretion of the examination's creator (with his/her programmer's help).

I imagine rooms filled with old computers which have been hobbled so that they can not send or receive e-mail or text messages, whose browsers can only access the examiner's server (URL) for examination questions, etc.. Using old discarded (obsolete) machines solely as browsers in a closed environment which is proctored to avoid telephone and interpersonal cheating, students could present themselves when "ready" and take their examinations (asynchronously), since it is easy to present different questions to different students in a completely fair manner. For those who do badly, the ability to come back and re-do examinations after more studying would be appropriate.

In a weird way, I consider this application also an investment in re-cycling used and obsolete computer equipment, i.e., the teaching institutions could scavenge boards, hard drives, etc., from machines to use in others as their equipment failed, thereby giving a "second life" (I know, I know) to machines whose desktop use has passed, but which are still fit for specialized service such as this application (where speed is of little to no importance, and in fact, the machine is idle most of the time while examinees think, calculate, ponder, etc..

For technical material, this is the best chance we have to re-rigorize what appears to be a crumbling intellectual edifice. Woe unto us if we fail to bring excellence back into learning.

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