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Course Management System (Online@UT)

Pros and Cons of Online Assessment

Online assessment can take place in many forms, and teachers are entrusted to modify and utilize a wide range of strategies to create opportunities of online assessment. However, as with many trends in education there are both advantages and disadvantages for teaching and learning in the online environment.

Advantages

• Time savings in test creation and grading
• Easy test question randomization
• Reduction in opportunities for cheating
• Easy creation of pre-tests
• Quick individualized feedback for students
• Students take tests in their own environment and time
• Decrease student anxiety
• Allows for quick identification of student weaknesses and needs for further study
• Adaptive testing possible

Disadvantages

• Time spent on initial course creation and quality assurance for pedagogy, lesson plan development, testing, scoring, and initial feedback.
• Once deployed, online testing does not allow the instructor to modify questions.
• Instructor is not on-demand when a student has a question.
• Technical malfunctions can and do occur in the online world.
• Instructors must have an established policy for dealing with students whose test performance is adversely affected by technological glitches.

With a full understanding of the pros and cons of the online environment, teachers are able to craft educational experiences that provide opportunities for active and robust learning. Students presented with such an engaging, quality learning experience can then go on to make bridges between concepts and obtain higher learning.