Improvement of learning through interactive confidence-based assessment

Certain criteria need to be fulfilled for assessment to be considered of strategic value. This is unfortunately not the case for many assessment strategies used today. The advent of new technology in many cases has extended traditional assessment tools well beyond their intended application, consequently falling short of their true goals of correctly grading the student while supplying meaningful feedback to the learning process. The need to address the shortcomings of traditional assessment strategies is necessary in order to improve the representation of a student’s present level of knowledge. Educators generally concede the existence of these inherent inadequacies with traditional assessment, such as the encouragement of guessing, failure to recognize partial knowledge, miscalibration of confidence and the inability for a student to declare minimal or no knowledge. Sound educational process is dependent on assessment strategies, as they greatly contribute to the learning experience, both as a method of formally assigning a grade (Summative Assessment) and as a means of giving feedback (Formative Assessment). The value of good assessment is to encourage the instructor and student to reflect on the results, often leading to adjustments in the student’s personal study program and refinement of the curriculum by the instructor. In considering previous research of others, this research promotes assessment with confidence measurement as a method to address the inadequacies of traditional assessment strategies, offering increased richness of feedback, elimination of the benefits gained from guessing and encouraging the declaration of partial or no knowledge. This research then promotes the use of an innovative assessment tool based on the traditional Multiple-choice Question (MCQ) format that incorporates a method to measure the confidence of the student in their preferred answer/s, referred to as the Multiple-choice Questions with Confidence Measurement (MCQCM). The preliminary pilot programs identified some critical usability issues pertaining to its operation, functionality and the operational cognitive process. The further development and refinement of the MCQCM required consideration to HCI User Centred Design (UCD) principles, formulating a set of heuristics specifically for assessment with confidence measurement interactive systems. This research investigates the application of games taxonomy to the educational arena to identify the criteria by which good interactive assessment tools should conform and its application to the MCQCM. This research identified the MCQCM to be equally reliable as other traditional assessment options, producing a convergence of scores, confirming it as a valid method of summative assessment. The observations and resulting analysis indicated that the greater distribution of scores contributed to a more dispersed allocation of grades for the students. The MCQCM utilizes technology to improve student learning in a progressive educational climate that requires strategic assessment solutions. This research encourages other educators to question current assessment practices and embrace the use of technology that is relevant to their individual requirements.