Testing

Students use technologies to do research for term papers, class projects, and personal exploration. The Internet has opened up new worlds of information for students about virtually every topic.

Computerized testing is actually much older than many people think. If you can remember using a No.2 pencil to fill in a Scantron during an exam at school, then you have participated in computerized testing. True, you didn't directly interact with a computer, but that Scantron was fed into a kind of computer that marked incorrect answers instead of your teacher.

Nevertheless, we'll stick with the definition of computerized testing as any testing that involves a student directly typing his or her answers into a computer, since this is the predominant conception, and it is unlikely to change any time soon.

Click on the links below to learn more about the place of computerized testing in contemporary education.

1. Why is computerized testing popular?
2. Why are some educators critical of computerized testing?
3. Are there any online resources for test takers?

Why is computerized testing popular?

There are many reasons for the popularity of computerized testing. Here are just a few:

• Computerized tests are convenient. Generally, computerized testing lightens a teacher's workload since the test scoring is done by the computer itself. This in turn can free a teacher to develop lesson plans or work on other important aspects of classroom management.
  
  
• Computerized tests give teachers a fast, accurate way of keeping track of their students' academic progress. Many sophisticated testing programs will not only score a test, but also diagnose a student's individual strengths and weaknesses in a particular subject matter. Such diagnostics can in turn help a teacher tailor his or her lessons to meet the needs of each student.
  
  
• Computerized testing helps kids to be computer literate. Regardless of what the test is about, having kids work with computers is good preparation for the kind of computer-intensive work they are likely to be doing in the workplace as adults.
  
  
• Computerized tests give quantifiable results. Government agencies, such as the California Department of Education, like to be able to work with numeric test results because they are easily tabulated and give an apparently objective measure of students' abilities. That not all skills are numerically measurable (such as, for example, clarity of expression) tends to be downplayed by some proponents of computerized testing.
  
  
• Computerized testing lets students take multiple practice tests before taking the real test. Whereas a teacher would be hard pressed to grade two or three practice tests before giving the actual test, a computer can grade any number of practice tests and give instantaneous results. Moreover, the ability to do more practice testing helps students to become more comfortable with the entire test-taking process, thereby reducing the stress levels associated with exams.

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