1、中文 3582 字 毕业论文（设计） 外文翻译 外文原文 FLEXIBILITY AND THE TECHNOLOGY OF COMPUTERAIDED ASSESSMENT R. D. Dowsing School of Information Systems, University of East Anglia. UK Email: rddsys.uea.ac.uk http:/www.sys.uea.ac.uk/cats ABSTRACT There are many different facets to flexibility in computer-aided assessment
2、, depending on ones viewpoint. As an example, for the developer increasing the flexibility of an assessment product means increasing the development cost but also increasing the size of the potential market. For the examiner, flexibility means the ability to use assessment aids in the specific way a
3、nd for the specific purpose which he/she requires. For the candidate, flexibility means being given a range of ways to answer a set of questions so that he/she can demonstrate his/her knowledge/skill to the best effect. The higher the level of knowledge/skill to be assessed, the more difficult the a
4、ssessment, the more flexible the assessor needs to be and the greater the involvement of human assessors in the assessment process. For simple types of assessment, for example, the use of multiple-choice questions, the assessment process can be almost completely automated and little human examiner i
5、nvolvement is required. For more complex assessment, for example, assessment of a design rather than an implementation, the candidate has many more options available and the assessment is not simply in terms of true or false but rather in degrees of correctness. At such levels computer software acts
6、 as an aid or filter to the human examiner, marking some attempts but passing attempts which are difficult to assess to the human examiner. The optimum balance, in terms of cost-effectiveness, between automatic assessment and the use of human examiners varies with time and is very sensitive to the n
7、umber of candidates to be assessed. Most of the current computerised assessors assess outcome rather than method since this is easier to automate. Techniques are now being developed which allow the method used to generate the answer to be collected and assessed. This will give the examiner additiona
8、l flexibility in the assessment since learners can be assessed by outcome but professionals can be assessed by method as well as outcome. For example, in assessing IT skills a university student may be assessed for the ability to word process an essay correctly whereas a professional typist may be a
9、ssessed for the efficiency of editing as well as correctness. This paper describes the technology required to add flexibility to computer-based assessors, with examples, and shows how adding flexibility to an assessor expands the potential uses. KEY WORDS Computerised assessment, IT skills, skills a
10、ssessment. 1. INTRODUCTION There are three stakeholders in computerised assessment； the system developer, the examiner and the candidates. Each stakeholder has their own requirements of the assessment system and these requirements can conflict. For the developer, the least risk strategy is to build
11、a system with as much flexibility as possible so that it can then be tailored for specific uses by different examiners. Such a system will be applicable to a wide market and thus allow development costs to be amortised over a larger range of sales than a more specialised product. However, a general-
12、purpose product is never as good as a specifically targeted product for a particular application and thus the developer has the difficult task of balancing the development flexibility and hence development cost against the range of applicability of a product. Computerised assessors are changing rapi
13、dly, partly due to technology improvements, partly due to improvements in algorithms and partly due to the increased use and market for such assessors. Presently available assessors are primitive and there is likely to be rapid development of more flexible and sophisticated systems over the next few
14、 years. Developers must possess the ability to predict what future developments might be and build the required flexibility into current products to enable new developments to be incorporated easily and cheaply. There are two different types of flexibility that a developer has to consider when devel
15、oping computerised assessors； flexible delivery and flexible use. Flexible delivery implies that assessment software should be able to be tailored to a specific environment, for example, to run on a selection of hardware or to offer a selection of tests. It also implies that the results of tests and
16、 exercises can be integrated into the users present mark processing and recording system. Flexible use implies that the software can be used in different types of examination or tests, for example, formative and summative tests. Flexibility thus adds to the functionality required of the assessment s
17、ystem and hence its size, development time and development cost. To some extent, it is possible, by building flexibility into an assessor, to produce a small number of assessors which can be customised to the exact requirements of a large number of users. The paper concentrates specifically on the a
18、ssessment of computer-based IT skills from the developers viewpoint and illustrates the inclusion of flexibility in the development of such assessors with examples from the authors experience. 2. GENERAL MODELS OF LEARNING AND ASSESSMENT There are many different models of learning which have been de
19、veloped over the years, some of which are discussed in Domjan (1998). A good summary of many of the well-known models can be found in Kearsley (1998). The model which many authors cite in the context of computer assisted assessment is Blooms taxonomy, Bloom (1956). He and his committee defined a hie
20、rarchical model of learning and assessment where higher levels of the model relate to higher skills. Level 1 Knowledge The ability to remember and recall previously memorized information, for example, to know facts, methods, principles,concepts and procedures. Level 2 Comprehension The ability to grasp the meaning of material, for example, by summarising material or by predicting future trends. This level involves such processes as translation, interpretation and estimation. Level 3 Application The ability to apply knowledge and basic understanding to new situations using such rules,
