The study investigated student reaction to the alternative mechanics survey (AMS), a modified force concept inventory, which used automatically marked free-response questions and offered limited feedback to students after their answers had been submitted. Eight participants were observed in completing the AMS, and they were interviewed to gain…

Inspection of thousands of student responses to computer-marked assessment questions has brought insight into the errors made by adult distance learners of science. Most of the questions analysed were in summative use and required students to construct their own response. Both of these things increased confidence in the reliability of the…

Interactive computer-marked assignments (iCMAs) are in use on a range of Science Faculty level 1 modules at the Open University UK, alongside tutor-marked assignments, for summative and formative purposes. They are also used diagnostically to help prospective students to make an appropriate choice of starting point. iCMAs have been very well…

A natural language based system has been used to author and mark short-answer free-text assessment tasks. Students attempt the questions online and are given tailored and relatively detailed feedback on incorrect and incomplete responses, and have the opportunity to repeat the task immediately so as to learn from the feedback provided. The answer…

Feedback on assessment tasks has an important part to play in underpinning student learning. Online assessment enables instantaneous feedback to be given so that the student can act on it immediately. However, concern has been expressed that e-assessment tasks (especially multiple-choice questions) can encourage surface-learning. Several projects…