A Comparison of Two Low-Stakes Methods for Administering a Program-Level Biology Concept Assessment

Concept assessments are used commonly in undergraduate science courses to assess student learning and diagnose areas of student difficulty. While most concept assessments align with the content of individual courses or course topics, some concept assessments have been developed for use at the progra...

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Autores principales:	Brian A. Couch, Jennifer K. Knight
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	American Society for Microbiology 2015
Materias:	Special aspects of education LC8-6691 Biology (General) QH301-705.5
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/a4846934a62b4b30abe380770f07001b
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:a4846934a62b4b30abe380770f07001b2021-11-15T15:04:03ZA Comparison of Two Low-Stakes Methods for Administering a Program-Level Biology Concept Assessment10.1128/jmbe.v16i2.9531935-78851935-7877https://doaj.org/article/a4846934a62b4b30abe380770f07001b2015-12-01T00:00:00Zhttps://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/jmbe.v16i2.953https://doaj.org/toc/1935-7877https://doaj.org/toc/1935-7885Concept assessments are used commonly in undergraduate science courses to assess student learning and diagnose areas of student difficulty. While most concept assessments align with the content of individual courses or course topics, some concept assessments have been developed for use at the programmatic level to gauge student progress and achievement over a series of courses or an entire major. The broad scope of a program-level assessment, which exceeds the content of any single course, creates several test administration issues, including finding a suitable time for students to take the assessment and adequately incentivizing student participation. These logistical considerations must also be weighed against test security and the ability of students to use unauthorized resources that could compromise test validity. To understand how potential administration methods affect student outcomes, we administered the Molecular Biology Capstone Assessment (MBCA) to three pairs of matched upper-division courses in two ways: an online assessment taken by students outside of class and a paper-based assessment taken during class. We found that overall test scores were not significantly different and that individual item difficulties were highly correlated between these two administration methods. However, in-class administration resulted in reduced completion rates of items at the end of the assessment. Taken together, these results suggest that an online, outside-of-class administration produces scores that are comparable to a paper-based, in-class format and has the added advantages that instructors do not have to dedicate class time and students are more likely to complete the entire assessment.Brian A. CouchJennifer K. KnightAmerican Society for MicrobiologyarticleSpecial aspects of educationLC8-6691Biology (General)QH301-705.5ENJournal of Microbiology & Biology Education, Vol 16, Iss 2, Pp 178-185 (2015)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Special aspects of education LC8-6691 Biology (General) QH301-705.5
spellingShingle	Special aspects of education LC8-6691 Biology (General) QH301-705.5 Brian A. Couch Jennifer K. Knight A Comparison of Two Low-Stakes Methods for Administering a Program-Level Biology Concept Assessment
description	Concept assessments are used commonly in undergraduate science courses to assess student learning and diagnose areas of student difficulty. While most concept assessments align with the content of individual courses or course topics, some concept assessments have been developed for use at the programmatic level to gauge student progress and achievement over a series of courses or an entire major. The broad scope of a program-level assessment, which exceeds the content of any single course, creates several test administration issues, including finding a suitable time for students to take the assessment and adequately incentivizing student participation. These logistical considerations must also be weighed against test security and the ability of students to use unauthorized resources that could compromise test validity. To understand how potential administration methods affect student outcomes, we administered the Molecular Biology Capstone Assessment (MBCA) to three pairs of matched upper-division courses in two ways: an online assessment taken by students outside of class and a paper-based assessment taken during class. We found that overall test scores were not significantly different and that individual item difficulties were highly correlated between these two administration methods. However, in-class administration resulted in reduced completion rates of items at the end of the assessment. Taken together, these results suggest that an online, outside-of-class administration produces scores that are comparable to a paper-based, in-class format and has the added advantages that instructors do not have to dedicate class time and students are more likely to complete the entire assessment.
format	article
author	Brian A. Couch Jennifer K. Knight
author_facet	Brian A. Couch Jennifer K. Knight
author_sort	Brian A. Couch
title	A Comparison of Two Low-Stakes Methods for Administering a Program-Level Biology Concept Assessment
title_short	A Comparison of Two Low-Stakes Methods for Administering a Program-Level Biology Concept Assessment
title_full	A Comparison of Two Low-Stakes Methods for Administering a Program-Level Biology Concept Assessment
title_fullStr	A Comparison of Two Low-Stakes Methods for Administering a Program-Level Biology Concept Assessment
title_full_unstemmed	A Comparison of Two Low-Stakes Methods for Administering a Program-Level Biology Concept Assessment
title_sort	comparison of two low-stakes methods for administering a program-level biology concept assessment
publisher	American Society for Microbiology
publishDate	2015
url	https://doaj.org/article/a4846934a62b4b30abe380770f07001b
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A Comparison of Two Low-Stakes Methods for Administering a Program-Level Biology Concept Assessment

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