Dealing with Online Test.....

OTL (Online Teaching Learning) in ELT, Theme 3, ‘Online Language Proficiency Assessment’:

“In the current era of globalization, mastery of English is associated with leading edge scientific, technological and economic developments. At the same time, the rapid rate of innovations in information technology (IT) has hastened the rise and spread of the English language as an international language for global communication. Therefore, the mastery of English language is seen to be instrumental for developing nations such as Malaysia to gain competitive edge in the global market.”

For this week posting regarding online test, I’ve chose to begin with the phrase above picked up from OTL in ELT text. Before proceeding into details on the online test, I would like to first share the insights I’ve gained from reading the chapter ‘Online Language Proficiency Assessment’ on UKM efforts to implement English language as a medium of instruction back into the education system in order ‘to remain competitive in a borderless world’. Little did I know before about the involvement of the School of Language Studies and Linguistics of UKM in this particular area. Much has been done to ‘develop the English language training module for in-service lecturers at UKM’ and this is solely for the purpose to ensure that lecturers are well qualified and prepared in passing on their knowledge to generate competitive future leaders of our nation.

An online English competency test is carried out for this purpose and the concept of K-campus is established to create a ‘knowledge-centric e-campus whereby a web-based system is used to facilitate education knowledge and resource services for the campus community’. One of the steps taken to realize this is the implication of web-based system Learning Care platform to ‘support teaching and learning online’. This platform has also allowed the development of online test for the UKM academicians which is the main discussion for this posting.

First of all, let us look into the Learning Care Assessment module. This is where questions can be created and managed by lecturers. Results of test takers can be kept in a database built in the system and the questions can be programmed in several forms such as fill in the blanks; true and false; multiple choice; matching and etc. Lecturers as portfolio owners can decide the time and date for the quiz to be taken by students and the duration of the quiz can also be set before hand.

Through SKBP 1023 Language and Information Technology, I had the opportunity to experience this online test as one of the tutorial tasks. The test titled ‘UJI ICT’ comes under 3 levels, ‘ASAS’, ‘PERTENGAHAN’ and ‘LANJUTAN’. It is an open online test and we were to complete the ‘ASAS’ (basic) level consisting 30 questions that are to be answered within 30 minutes. The short test is conducted in Malay language and the content of questions are regarding to ICT components. This is precisely the result I’ve obtained from the test.

Online Quiz Results Summary

Online Quiz Results :: Kemahiran Asas ICT

Your Score : 22/30

Your #Attempts : 1
Total Class #Attempts : 625
Your Quiz Score : 22/30
Your Highest Score Ever : 22

Not only is the immediate feedback provided, the marking scheme is also informed before hand.

Skala Permarkahan dan Kemahiran

UJIAN MARKAH BAND Peringkat Asas 0-10 1 11-20 2 21-30 3 Peringkat Pertengahan 0-15 1 16-25 4 26-35 5 36-45 6 Peringkat Lanjutan 0-30 1 31-40 7 41-50 8 51-60 9

The ability of immediate feedback and the provision of marking scheme I would say have made the online test a user friendly one. It is easily accessible through the Learning Care platform which all members of UKM are subscribed to, whether it be the lecturers or students. Test takers would not be able to get answers from peers because of the randomized questions. Me and my coursemates may be taking the same online test at the same time, but the questions that turned out for each of us are different.

The marking scheme provided allow me to know how I will be evaluated and therefore, before taking the test itself, I know how many questions I have to get right in order to achieve certain band. As for the immediate feedback, I personally think it is an encouragement for me to complete the test so I can know how I score and so I can find out my general proficiency on ICT knowledge. As I went through the questions, I once again discover its relevance with my other course subject which is SKPD 1053 Teknologi Maklumat Untuk Sains Sosial. Much of it has actually been dealt with in that particular course subject; the only obstacle has to be the fact that the test is conducted in Malay language. I believe that this is the difficulty that most test takers come across because we are all more familiar with English when it comes to terms in ICT. Therefore, throughout the test, I think I spent more time translating and trying to guess the meaning of the Malay language vocabulary of ICT than the time spent on trying to figure out the answer. Besides this, there are also a few frailties that this online test can be improved on. The feedback can be further enhanced by including the answers for the questions taken so test takers will be able to go through it and find out which questions they have done wrongly. Without it, it is as though nothing much has been gained besides to experience of taking online test. Halfway through the test, maybe after 15 minutes since I started, I began to find the test dull and routine like and felt the tendency to quit before completing it. It could be the effect of the endless unclear ICT terms. Possibly if some visuals were to be added in it to provide some non verbal clues, the test would not have felt like such a time consuming process. It would be a dread to students who are yet ICT savvy. Whereas on the security aspect, only the UKM community will be able to access the test and to obtain the result of the test, password and username is required. One may argue that they can always give their password and username to others who's better to help take the test. I must say nothing much can really be done to reach the highest level of security for such online test because if a person intend to cheat, they would do whatever it takes. In my opinion, as an adult and a university level student, one should expect more of themselves to be honest in cases as such because by the end of the day, it is no one else's lost but themselves.

Other than that, it is the sense of formality I would like to discuss on. One thing for sure is that the privacy we usually can find in traditional paper and pencil test is not much found in this online test. The lack of formality causes the online test to appear trivial and I felt little pressure in putting my best at it. However, the advantage of it is that we are free from the examination hall pressure and tension which can at times be negative for some students’ overall performance. They would feel at ease and work on their own pace while taking the test.

Overall, I think the implementation of online assessment is something pragmatic that is worth investing effort in. When it comes to dealing with a large amount of test takers and exam questions are merely that of true or false/multiple choices, it is wiser to implement online test than the traditional paper test. It is an approach much more suitable for university level students comparing to scheduled exams as it can be assessed easily and students can arrange time that fits into their hectic schedule better to take the test when they’re ready. Most importantly, online test reduces the manpower needed to mark the test. All the work to be done in managing and evaluating such test is now feasible and there will be no cases of bias results because it is all done by computer. Complementing and supplementing online test into the education system will be a benefiting step to take.