Research on spatial navigation is essential to understanding how mobile species adapt to their environments. Such research increasingly uses virtual environments (VEs) because, although VE has drawbacks, it allows for standardization of procedures, precision in measuring behaviors, ease in introducing variation, and cross-investigator…

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the shift toward online learning solutions necessitating the need for developing online assessment solutions. Vendors offer online assessment delivery systems with varying security levels designed to minimize unauthorized behaviors. Combating cheating and securing assessment content, however, is not solely the…

The COVID-19 shutdown of in-person university classrooms in Spring 2020 brought the question of how to conduct online examinations into urgent focus. Although, online education has been around since 1984 and online exams have been routinely built into online course syllabi, the mid-semester transition to online teaching confronted many instructors…

Recent research on entering college student assessment instruments and placement practices has been critical. Critics suggest that commonly used assessment instruments are inaccurate, misused, and lack predictive validity. This article describes valid criticisms and appropriate uses of assessment instruments. It also lists challenges and provides…

As our understanding of the construct of oral communication (OC) has evolved, so have the possibilities of computer technology undertaking the delivery of tests that measure this ability. It is paramount to understand to what extent such developments lead to accurate, comprehensive, and useful assessment of OC. In this paper, we discuss five…

Despite the substantial expansion in vocabulary research since the 1980s, we still know very little about how vocabulary develops over time and what factors influence this development. This methodological overview discusses key issues and considerations in vocabulary breadth growth assessment to help advance research in this area. The report…

Online assessment is an essential part of online education, and if conducted properly, has been found to effectively gauge student learning. Generally, textbased questions have been the cornerstone of online assessment. Recently, however, the emergence of generative artificial intelligence has added a significant challenge to the integrity of…

This paper deals with a solution allowing digital universities to extend the functionalities of their distance learning platform to offer a secure solution for the dematerialization of assessments. Currently we are witnessing the rise of digital universities, this is the case in Africa, particularly in Senegal. We are witnessing strong growth in…

This technical report describes the development of oral reading fluency passages for use in the CBMSkills assessment system. Seventeen passages were created for each of Grades 1 through 5. Passages were designed to target the fluency component of a developmental model of reading. All passages were written with the specification to use language and…

The COVID-19 pandemic made traditionally proctored in-person exams impossible. This article provides a summary of the arguments against institutional adoption of remote proctoring services with a focus on equity, an account of the decision to avoid remote proctoring on the University of Michigan--Dearborn campus, and conclusions and suggestions…

Access to high-quality education at scale is limited by the difficulty of providing student feedback on open-ended assignments in structured domains like programming, graphics, and short response questions. This problem has proven to be exceptionally difficult: for humans, it requires large amounts of manual work, and for computers, until…

This article describes the move to digital teaching and learning for the language team in the School of Modern Languages (SML) at the University of Bristol as a consequence of COVID-19 in March 2020. Topics discussed here include the educational guidelines the university put in place; how these were followed and implemented by colleagues in Modern…

As educational systems move from onsite to online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers face the difficulty of designing online examination formats which minimize opportunities for dishonesty. In this paper, we expose our design of such a format: a protected Microsoft Excel spreadsheet containing short-answer questions, which was implemented in a…

The COVID-19 pandemic has inspired the implementation of a number of online educational activities designed to promote appropriate measures, such as social distancing, in order to avoid spread of the disease. In these circumstances, ensuring that extracurricular activities in science education adapt to the changing situation is of crucial…

Also known as The Nation's Report Card, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is the largest nationally representative and continuing assessment of student achievement and their learning experiences in various subjects for the nation, states, and 27 urban districts. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is currently…