Technology-Based Assessment in STEM+C

• In Event: Classroom-Based STEM Assessment: Current Status and Future Directions

Abstract

To meet the challenges of educating children and training a future workforce, instructors should be able to track students’ thinking and progression towards learning goals in a timely fashion, using classroom-based assessments that are reliable, valid, and feasible (Author, 2007). Not surprisingly, technology has shaped how these formative assessments are designed, administered, and analyzed. A large body of research has adopted technologies such as games, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence for developing classroom-based assessments to target complex constructs, augment the assessment functionality of evidentiary reasoning, and assist teachers in the classroom (Author, 2020a; Author, 2020b). While previous work shows some of the potential of technology-based assessment, synthesizing these developments and identifying the role of technology, as technology bridges our observations, interpretations, and understanding of students’ cognition, is critical to forward the field both theoretically and practically.
In this presentation, we will present a synthesis of critical developments in technology-driven, classroom-based assessments in the past ten years, using a framework that includes construct, assessment functionality, and automaticity. In doing so, we will address two research questions: (a) what roles does technology play in assessment practices? (b) to what degree has technology advanced assessment practices in targeting complex constructs, increasing assessment functionality, and easing human efforts? Our talk will conclude with how this synthesis of prior work and emerging technologies and techniques come together to point towards future directions in classroom-based assessment development and research. Of particular focus will be the role of educational data mining and artificial intelligence on the form and functionality of classroom-based assessment.

Author

• Xiaoming Zhai, University of Georgia
  Presenting Author