Personalized Examinations In

Large On-Campus Classes

Guy Albertelli, Gerd Kortemeyer, Alexander
Sakharuk, Edwin Kashy

Michigan State University

 Background
• Courses with large number of students (PHY183
physics with calculus, required for most
engineering majors)
• Course Goals
• Greater time on task
• Increase success rate while setting higher standards
 Motivation
• “Why computer generated and graded
homework, quizzes, and examinations?”
• Frequent tasks can be given with available instructor
resources.
• “Why personalized?”
• Minimal additional effort.
• For assignments, to promote collaboration between
students and reduce mindless copying
• Greatly facilitates proctoring of exams
• Speeds identification of students via printed picture
on exams.
 Quizzes
• Unannounced
• Average - 1 to 2 per lecture
• Duration – 5 to 12 minutes
• Distribution time – 2 to 3 minutes
• Subject – often same topic as covered in lecture
• Impact
• Objective – high attendance level maintained throughout
the semester
• Subjective – students more attentive in lecture
 Mid-Term Exams
• Feedback to students and instructor on progress
and performance
• Exams are also a take-home assignment
• Since randomized, students get a different version
• Students are given partial credit towards the exam
• Increases time on task for all students
• Since they redo all of the problems, they will also
rework problems that they might have only guessed
right on the exam
 Final Exam
• Summative assessment
• Subset of exam could be standardized
• Allows comparison
• year to year
• Across institutions
 Mechanics
• Students pickup their paper and scanning form
• Paper might be with or without photo of student
• History
• Initially, hand comaprison of student answers with
the computer generated list of correct answers
• Then, table-top scanner, operated by the instructor,
computer grades exam, using custom generated form
• Later, standard bubble forms scanned by University
facility
• Sheets might have multiple bubbles filled in on one line
• University generated computer file that was sent to
instructor to upload to system for grading
 Mechanics cont.
• Current status
• Use standard Scantron forms
• Central office scans forms into a computer file
• All questions have a single bubble filled in per line
• Homework questions are automatically convertible
into ‘bubble’ format for use on exams
• Instructor corrects the few student bubbling errors,
and grades data (5-20 minutes)
• Results posted on system to students when instructor
allows it (students can see which individual
questions they got right and wrong)
Examples
Online Exam
Offline Exam
Examples
Offline
Exam
Offline Exam
Online
Online
Offline
Exam
Offline
Exam
 Observations
• Benefits
• Complaints by students about other students cheating
is gone
• ‘Corrections Assignment’ for exams are highly
appreciated by students
• Few complaints about exam dificulty
• “It wasn’t that hard. I should have gotten it.”
• No need to go over exam in class
• Drawbacks
• Printing is time consuming (automated, reliable as
the printer)
 Future Directions
• Fully on-line exams
• Several have been done for non-critical exams
• More resources are needed to do real high stakes
exams
• Computer lab space
• Handheld devices
• But
• Current scheme is reliable, has a complete paper
record
• If a technology glitch occurs, rescheduling an exam for
500-2000 students would be a nightmare
 More Information

www.lon-capa.org

Next user conference

George Washingtion University
Washington, D.C.
January 23-24 2004

We welcome new collaborators. We’d be happy to

talk to you about joining our consortium.