Fortnightly Quiz
This page describes an implementation of an assessment method by a lecturer or group of lecturers. The content of the page is the result of an interview conducted through the RAFT project in DIT in the 2013-14 Academic Year.
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Lecturer and Contact Details
Programme and year on which assessment was offered
- BSc Computing, Years 2-3
- BSc Computer Science, Years 2-3
Description
Quiz based on worksheets and theory done in the short-term before the quiz.
What have you found are the advantages of using this form of assessment?
- Very contained, gives a good indication of progress and also feeds back level of students’ understanding to lecturer.
- Mostly self-correcting
- Questions can be trivial or lengthy (usually one lengthy one) allowing flexibility and the ability to set problems for solving.
What have you found are the dis-advantages of using this form of assessment?
- Relies on technology
- Unless question sets are used, can lead to copying.
- Takes a lot of development time
Alternatives
Lab tests or class exams.
Assessment in practice
Very suitable for large classes, especially where the correction is spread over a group of teaching assistants / lecturers.
Feedback is one of the major advantages of this. Students can see rubrics and get detailed information as to what they did / didn’t know. Lecturers can also check to see if any questions were answered poorly, indicating that the subject wasn’t easily received by the students. Also an incentive of ‘top ten’ scorers can be used very easily. This also allows lecturers to be aware of students who are not engaging (i.e. not taking the quizzes).
Assessment Time
- Preparation time (lecturer) : High, but can be reused after a few years or randomly in other quizzes.
- Student time to complete: short, but they must have reviewed recently covered material.
- Marking time: Only essay type questions need to be marked manually.
Assessment Time
- Preparation time (lecturer) : High, but can be reused after a few years or randomly in other quizzes.
Writing guidelines for staff
Questions must be clear and unambiguous. Automatic correction should be checked for correctness (e.g. sometimes an extra space can cause a correct answer to be marked wrong).
There should be a mixture of easy and difficult questions – if they’re too easy, the students will score too highly, but some easy questions are an incentive to students to stay engaged with a module they are finding challenging. Conversely, it is always worthwhile to put in a heavy-weight question that will tax the students, so that grading will return a spread of marks that show differing abilities in the class.
Guidelines/Handouts for students
I always give them a trial quiz that is not marked at the start of the module, so that they can get used to the format. Handouts can be given in the lab or embedded as links in quizzes. To prevent the students from taking the quiz from an unauthorized place, passwords can be put on the quizzes and given out in labs.
Templates /Marking Grids/ Rubrics
These are intrinsic to the self-correcting questions, but it is important to know the environment well. .e.g. multiple answer questions may mark correct options as correct and ignore incorrect ones. If this is used, any student who ticks ALL boxes gets 100%!
