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Sat, Nov 6, 8:00 - 8:25, Narragansett Room Paper (refereed)

Recommended Citation: Amoroso, D L. Use of Online Assessment Tools to Enhance Student Performance in Large Classes. In The Proceedings of the Information Systems Education Conference 2004, v 21 (Newport): §3142. ISSN: 1542-7382. (A later version appears in Information Systems Education Journal 3(4). ISSN: 1545-679X.)

Recipient of Distinguished Merit Award

Use of Online Assessment Tools to Enhance Student Performance in Large Classes

Refereed

8 pages

Donald L. Amoroso    [a1] [a2]
College of Business Administration
Appalachian State University    [u1] [u2]
Boone, North Carolina, USA    [c1] [c2]

This research addresses the use of online assessment tools for large classes. Research has reported an increasing use of technologies for enhancing the learning within large classes. Hybrid classes are those that use both traditional lectures and examinations in conjunctions with online teaching, learning modules, and online assessment tools. This paper addresses the online assessment tool and addresses the question, "Will students perform better using online assessment technologies?" Two hybrid classes, both with student enrollments of 500 students, utilized the online assessment tool by McGraw-Hill called SimNet. Students were assessed four times for Microsoft Office applications and completed a pre-test and post-test online assessment, while also completing three traditional, in-class examinations. Correlation analysis and linear regression was used to ascertain relationships as well as impacts on overall grade. It was found that, when adjusted for sample size, online assessments and traditional examinations both contribute to final grades for students in large mega-sections. Attendance was not found to have either a strong correlation with final grade, nor be significant in predicting final grade. Students who performed better on online assessments also performed better on traditional examinations. Finally, the gap-closing measure of performance was not a strong predictor of final grade indicating that, although pre-test and post-test measures are most common in terms of learning, other measures of learning may need to be used to predict final grades using online assessment tools.

Keywords: assessment, online tools, large classes, student performance

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