Assessment
There are many assessment options for online courses. The method(s) you choose will likely depend on the components you have chosen to include in your online course. Particular assessment methods tend to match up better with particular online activities. For example, standardized tests and essays can match well with a strongly behaviorist approach, where assessment is designed to match exactly with objectives. It is always a good idea to keep assessment methods in mind as you design the content of a course, so that you don not end up with student activities that you are uncertain of how to evaluate.
When talking about course assessments, probably the first thing that comes to many people's mind are the traditional standardized tests and essays. Computer-delivered standardized tests (multiple choice, true/false, matching) are an excellent choice for providing students with self-checked, immediate feedback quizzes. Quizzes can be programmed to allow students to take them repeatedly for mastery, and will automatically grade the answers and provide feedback to the students. Instructors can choose to actually have these grades saved to a gradebook for assessment purposes, or just discard the grade and use the quizzes for student mastery practice. This type of quizzing can be particularly beneficial to instructors because they require little to no maintenance once they have been created.
Standardized, computer graded assessments are also a good choice for large enrollment classes, and are often a component in large course redesigns following the Center for Academic Transformation's model. Because these exams are auto-graded by the computer, they can save instructors and T.A.'s huge amounts of time. However, a cautionary note on using standardized exams—other than setting up proctoring sites, there is no way to guarantee that students are not using other resources to help them take the exams. Protoring an exam involes sending your students to proctoring sites (usually libraries and schools) where a proctor will check picture identifications and monitor students while they take online exams. This is a good solution to the worry about cheating, but can take quite a lot of time to set up.
Essays can also be used as a form of assessment in online courses. The biggest concern with assigning essays in an online course is the same as in a face-to-face course—plagiarism. One way to deter plagiarism is to assign unique essay topics. Choose topics that students will be less likely to find pre-written essays on in the online term paper mills. Opinion papers, supported by points from the course content, also can deter plagiarism. Additionally, there are also software packages that claim to detect plagiarism, such as http://www.plagiarism.org. However, approach these programs with caution. Some of them are very limited in their search capabiilties, and therefore may not be able to detect all instances of plagiarism. Costs could also be prohibitive on some of the software packages. Requiring students to participate in regular discussion boards can help instructors become familiar with students' writing styles and thereby aid instructors in detecting plagiarism by spotting text that appears out of character.
Although the research is somewhat limited in evaluating best practices for conducting assessments in online courses, much of the research is in agreement that interaction is essential for a successful online course, and therefore attention must be paid to effectively assessing online interaction in a course (Knowlton, 2003; Roblyer & Wiencke, 2003; Song, 2003). As discussed in the section on interaction, students can be evaluated on both content interaction and interpersonal interaction.
Content interaction can be assessed through the methods discussed above (standardized tests and essays). Additionally, content interaction can be evaluated through the use of case studies, action mazes, and participation in simulations. Assessing content interaction is typically a little more straightforward than assessing interpersonal interaction, because knowledge of content is more easily measured by providing accurate factual information, and/or providing opinions that are based on factual information.
Interpersonal interaction takes place primarily as communication, such as in chats, discussion boards, group work and emails. Quantitative analysis of participation in interpersonal interaction can be measured through counting the number of discussion posts and emails, and by counting attendance in chat sessions and group meetings. However, qualitative assessment can be more difficult.
Hae-Deok Song proposes that qualitative evaluation is needed in order to measure the "process of meaning negotiation and knowledge construction" (Song, 2003). Qualitative evaluation is needed to determine how meaningful the interaction is—not just whether students are participating, but are they participating in a meaningful way. Bauer and Anderson (2000) advocate that instructors assess whether a student "expresses ideas clearly, concisely, cogently, in a logical fashion" (p.68). Students are given a framework for interaction through the content resources provided, and then expound upon the material and expand their knowledge through thoughtful discussion.
Song proposes two levels of assessment: the macro and the micro (see chart below; Song, p. 442). The micro involves analyzing the individual messages, and the macro level looks at overall trends of multiple messages. This model allows instructors to evaluate both quantitative and qualitative components of communication in order to produce a more cohesive and thorough evaluation of the communication.
Bauer, J.F., & Anderson, R.S. (2000). "Evaluating students' written performance in the online classroom." in R.E. Weiss, D.S. Knowlton, & B.W. Speck (eds.), Principles of effective teaching in the online classroom (p. 65-72). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Knowlton, Dave S. (2003). "Evaluating College Students' Efforts in Asynchronous Discussion: A Systematic Process." The Quarterly Review of Distance Education, vol. 4(1), pp. 31-41
Roblyer, M.D., & Wiencke, W.R. (2003). "Design and Use of a Rubric to Assess and Encourage Interactive Qualities in Distance Courses." The American Journal of Distance Education, vol. 17(2), pp. 7-98.
Song, Hae-Deok (2003). "Development of a Systematic Assessment Framework for Analyzing Interaction in Online Environments." The Quarterly Review of Distance Education, vol. 4(4), pp. 437-444.