Ensuring Quality of a Large-Scale Online Assessment for Nursing Students in the 21st Century: A Case Study

Literature

The online assessment is witnessing significant change. This is brought about by rapid technological developments and shifts in the students’ learning and instructors’ work. For institutions, online assessment is particularly attractive as an assessment tool because of the standardized marking, collating data for quality assurance and cost-effectiveness of accommodating large student cohort (Thorne et al., 2015; Guàrdia et al., 2017). For instructors, they can access both students’ individual and class reports of the assessment once the assessment ends. Instructors could get a better picture of the progress of students in a large cohort and identify their strengths and weaknesses at an early stage (Secolsky & Denison, 2017). Then follow-up action can be taken to students with learning problems. Moreover, the computer-marking online assessment can save time and resources (Dermo, 2007). It is particularly useful for classes of large size (JISC, 2007; Thorne et al., 2015). It can add value and allow instructors to make more productive use of their time (JISC, 2010). Assessing students is an important aspect of the teaching and learning cycle (Hall, 2018). One of the main objectives of a nursing curriculum is to motivate students and promote student-centered learning (Bern et al., 2017). The online assessment is designed to promote student-centered learning and give information about their progress. Theonline assessment system makes the result delivered and gives detailed feedback upon completion of test (Davis et al., 2013; Crisp, Guàrdia, & Hillier, 2016). The online assessment system can offer timely and constructive feedback which is crucial to successful learning (Guo et al., 2014; Hall, 2018). These advantages, however, must be weighed against the disadvantages of the online assessment.