Abstract

The authors have developed and evaluated an on-line, open-book quiz database for an introductory course in the natural sciences. The quiz database has proved to be remarkably robust, and its integrity has not been compromised after four years of use; average quiz scores have not shown any systematic change with time. However, both as a response to critics who complain of excessive use of multiple choice questions and in an attempt to increase the effectiveness of the course in promoting scientific literacy, we have explored the use of questions that require students to make not one response on test questions, but several responses to tightly related or complex questions. We present information about these "intermediate constraint" questions, and show how these question types add to the evaluation of student progress. We also show that these question types effectively discriminate between students that prepare well and those that do not.

Citation

DeFrain, R., Locklin, R., Sturgeon, J. & Howell, P. (2007). The Design and Performance of Intermediate Constraint Questions for an On-Line, Introductory Course in Natural Science. In T. Bastiaens & S. Carliner (Eds.), Proceedings of E-Learn 2007--World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education (pp. 247-256). Quebec City, Canada: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). Retrieved March 2, 2021 from https://www.learntechlib.org/primary/p/26336/.

© 2007 Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE)