Survival of the -net-est?

Abstract

More feedback to students is demanded to improve educational quality. In large courses individual feedback is often very time-demanding for the teacher. If teacher hours are only marginally increased to cover increased student feedback, teachers should look for electronic tools for assistance with student feedback that will reduce teacher work hours, at least in the long run. This paper reports my experiences with electronic multiple – choice tests in mid-term feed-back to students in large courses in undergraduate studies. It reports a lot of the decisions that the teacher has to make when creating a multiple-choice test for a course such as the choice between a paper or electronic test, number and type of questions, number of answer options, scores for right and wrong answers and manual or electronic scoring. The paper also addresses the communication with students before and after the test, the need for administrative support and finally discusses the costs and benefits with respect to teacher hours. These experiences may be useful to teachers who consider using electronic test-tools.