Online timed test are we wasting our time?

[HigherEd7]

There has been a lot of talk about online tests and how much time we should give students to take a quiz or exam. When we think about it our students have their books, computers, phone, etc. to look up answers so why give them a time limit? They are going to look up the answers anyway. Who really has the time to generate 50 or 60 questions for an exam to make it difficult for the students to lookup? Finally, if a student wants to cheat, they will and there is nothing we can do to stop it. Thoughts?

[dismalist]

If one has all kinds of information at one's finger tips instantaneously, what does cheating even mean? We must make different kinds of tests. Sure as hell will be harder to grade. :-)

Analogy: Once pocket calculators became cheap, what was the point of testing addition, subtraction, and the rest?

[HigherEd7]

You bring up a great point. There some online courses that have over 50 students, what kind of test are you talking about?

[dismalist]

Details will be discipline dependent.

To use the arithmetic example, "word problems" already do what we need to do. I think that captures the drift more or less adequately. These problems cannot be solved with calculators alone.

[marshwiggle]

Details will be discipline dependent.

To use the arithmetic example, "word problems" already do what we need to do. I think that captures the drift more or less adequately. These problems cannot be solved with calculators alone.

From previous discussions here, these are a class of "application" questions which make them difficult to google since they aren't about simply regurgitating facts. Another type of question is one which asks students to integrate information from two sources, such as comparing the ways character A from source A dealt with a similar situation to character B from source B. If sources A and B are far enough apart culturally, google isn't going to find any connection.

[HigherEd7]

You bring up some great points in a perfect world, but who has the time to sit and develop these types of questions? And then you have to spend time developing a rubric and grading these questions.

Details will be discipline dependent.

To use the arithmetic example, "word problems" already do what we need to do. I think that captures the drift more or less adequately. These problems cannot be solved with calculators alone.

From previous discussions here, these are a class of "application" questions which make them difficult to google since they aren't about simply regurgitating facts. Another type of question is one which asks students to integrate information from two sources, such as comparing the ways character A from source A dealt with a similar situation to character B from source B. If sources A and B are far enough apart culturally, google isn't going to find any connection.

[Puget]

You bring up some great points in a perfect world, but who has the time to sit and develop these types of questions? And then you have to spend time developing a rubric and grading these questions.

Well, that's called class prep-- it's part of your job. We all spend time making good assessments.

[apl68]

In some types of courses online exams are proctored to reduce the possibility of cheating.

In my graduate online courses for MLS we never even had exams.  It was all projects and papers.

[mythbuster]

I use online quizzes as a way for students to demonstrate having done the reading. I set the timer usually as 1 minute per question +1 minute (all MC/ fill in the blank etc. questions). This gives them not enough time to find the answer if they haven't done the reading. Early on in the semester, I do have students who get "timed out" of the quiz. Then they usually catch on.
    I don't think timing would work well for longer free response type questions

[marshwiggle]

Another tip: (Note this has some accessibility ramifications, but anyway...)

Use screenshots of text instead of straight text so they can't cut and paste into google. (Especially for quotations from sources.)

[HigherEd7]

How do you use this tool?

Another tip: (Note this has some accessibility ramifications, but anyway...)

Use screenshots of text instead of straight text so they can't cut and paste into google. (Especially for quotations from sources.)

[marshwiggle]

How do you use this tool?

Another tip: (Note this has some accessibility ramifications, but anyway...)

Use screenshots of text instead of straight text so they can't cut and paste into google. (Especially for quotations from sources.)

Just take a screenshot of text (for instance using the "Snipping tool" in Windows), and then in your LMS upload the image. (We use D2L, and you can insert an image as part of a question in a quiz.) Then in the quiz question, say something like, "In the text sample shown,....."

This won't work for students who are visually impaired and need a screen reader, but otherwise may be OK.

[Kron3007]

I use them and in the end I feel they are a time saver for me and are a decent way to test students,  but I would not want to make it worth too much of their final grade.  The reasons I like this approach include:

1) It is actually a time saver in the long run because you can generate and build a library of test questions over years.  While they do take time to create you can re-use the questions from year to year and slowly build the database, adding new questions and getting rid of problematic or outdated ones.  Since you can have the questions randomly selected from the pool (or randomly selected from various pools to ensure different topics are adequately tested), there is no major issue of the test being the same as last year and students getting old copies of tests.  Obviously this can be done manually with paper quizzes, but computers automate this and are better at it.

2) The other reason this is a major time saver is that they can be automatically graded and you can choose to allow students to see where they went wrong etc.  This is a huge time saver and more than makes up for the extra time taken to create the tests.  Students also like this because they get to see the results quickly instead of waiting for me or a TA to grade and return tests.

3) While there is still room to look up answers, the time limit makes this difficult and I have found that it is not a major issue.  If it were a major problem, all students would get exceptionally high grades, but that has not been my experience with them.  I think the key is to create good questions that require the student to synthesize facts and theories.  If you are asking them the definition ox X, it will be easy to look up.  If you ask them what the influence of X would be on process Y, it would be difficult to look up within the given time frame.  So, I think this approach to testing is relatively good provided you design the questions well.   I find it much more challenging to develop good MC questions than I would have anticipated when I was a student, but with a little effort they are effective for evaluating students and more fair than longer answer questions. 

[HigherEd7]

Good question. Do you ever add test questions from the test banks?

I use them and in the end I feel they are a time saver for me and are a decent way to test students,  but I would not want to make it worth too much of their final grade.  The reasons I like this approach include:

1) It is actually a time saver in the long run because you can generate and build a library of test questions over years.  While they do take time to create you can re-use the questions from year to year and slowly build the database, adding new questions and getting rid of problematic or outdated ones.  Since you can have the questions randomly selected from the pool (or randomly selected from various pools to ensure different topics are adequately tested), there is no major issue of the test being the same as last year and students getting old copies of tests.  Obviously this can be done manually with paper quizzes, but computers automate this and are better at it.

2) The other reason this is a major time saver is that they can be automatically graded and you can choose to allow students to see where they went wrong etc.  This is a huge time saver and more than makes up for the extra time taken to create the tests.  Students also like this because they get to see the results quickly instead of waiting for me or a TA to grade and return tests.

3) While there is still room to look up answers, the time limit makes this difficult and I have found that it is not a major issue.  If it were a major problem, all students would get exceptionally high grades, but that has not been my experience with them.  I think the key is to create good questions that require the student to synthesize facts and theories.  If you are asking them the definition ox X, it will be easy to look up.  If you ask them what the influence of X would be on process Y, it would be difficult to look up within the given time frame.  So, I think this approach to testing is relatively good provided you design the questions well.   I find it much more challenging to develop good MC questions than I would have anticipated when I was a student, but with a little effort they are effective for evaluating students and more fair than longer answer questions.

[the_geneticist]

Good question. Do you ever add test questions from the test banks?

Never.  I would never use test bank questions on an exam.  Maybe a few for a quiz or other formative assessment where they need to know the basics to come to class prepared.

For a few reasons:
One, they are almost always simple recall type questions that can easily be answered with Google or the textbook.  I'm not going to put a factual recall question on an summative assessment like an exam.
Two, the answers are almost certainly available online (even for application or higher level questions) and savvy students will find them (Course Hero and other "study help" websites have exactly this sort of material available for free).
Three, the questions can be low quality/not on essential concepts/poorly written.  I would have to go through each question to make sure it's not terrible.

Just write your own questions.  You can use test bank questions as a resource for images/types of questions/etc., but take the time to write your own.

Yes, include a time limit for the reasons other folks have stated.