Assessment of Student Achievement in Undergraduate Education (ASA)

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This project is developing improved practices and tools for the use of Web-based assessment in SMET courses. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) is singularly well suited for such a project. For more than five years faculty and students have been making increasing use of a Web-based assessment system, Enterprise Diploma (EDU), based on software created at UNL. The level of activity with Web-based assessment at UNL, in pedagogical content development, software development, and institutional commitment, makes this campus a fertile site for groundbreaking advances in this area. During the 2000 - 2001 academic year, the EDU software was in use in more than 30 courses, and was used by more than 8,500 students. In addition, earlier versions of this web-based assessment system have been published nationally and adopted by a diverse range of postsecondary institutions. This project is engaged in assessing, expanding, and enhancing the use of this assessment system. Thus it is contributing to the improvement of student learning and satisfaction with basic math, statistics, physics, astronomy, and geology, and enabling instructors to improve instructional practices and course design as a result of increased knowledge of their students' skills and abilities. The objectives of this project are to: 1) Assess the effects of systematically varied use of Web-based assessment on student learning and motivation; 2) Develop and test new question suites and types of questions that allow more complex assessments, and conduct detailed item analysis on the archives of questions and student assessments; 3) Develop an implementation program that includes individual coaching and training workshops to prepare instructors to use EDU.The ultimate products of this project will be Web-based pedagogical assessment materials for introductorySMET courses that will be disseminated nationally through the proposing team's established links with traditional text-book and software publishers, and/or through open-source, "authorshare"- style Web-based means. The project also will produce educational research leading to recommendations for improved practice of Web-based assessment, with the potential to improve SMET teaching and learning in undergraduate institutions nationwide. Web-based assessment allows students to practice, fail, succeed and develop proficiency in a student-centered environment and enables instructors to assess and respond to student needs and tailor instruction accordingly. Yet, despite the attractiveness of the idea and the popularity ofEDU at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln (and of similar products at other schools), most of the evidence of its effectiveness, or possible lack of effectiveness, is anecdotal. It is vital to experimentally measure and test its effectiveness as an assessment tool in SMET courses.This project will focus on assessing the validity and use of EDU in large foundational courses, first- and second-year classes with enrollments of 100 or more students. These classes are often the first encounter undergraduates have with SMET disciplines. The experience of undergraduates in them can shape their attitudes and expectations about science, math and engineering in profound ways.