I think that right now is an exciting time to be involved in educational assessment. The community is asking exciting questions about how to make the most out of available technologies to determine what students know and can do. An increasing number of assessment programs are being delivered online. Now educators and assessment developers are asking the question, “What can we do with this technology?” The two consortia, PARCC and Smarter Balanced, are leading the way by utilizing technology-enhanced items within their assessment programs. That leads to the question, “What is a technology-enhanced item?”
The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium defines a technology-enhanced item this way.
Technology-enhanced items (TEI) are computer-delivered items that include specialized interactions for collecting response data. These include interactions and responses beyond traditional selected-response or constructed-response.
The distinguishing idea behind a technology-enhanced item is that they have specialized interactions that would be difficult to duplicate in a paper-and-pencil environment. The use of technology makes these interactions much easier to implement in a large-scale assessment environment. Smarter Balanced has defined over twenty such interactions.
By contrast, a technology-enabled item does not have a specialized interaction. The item may have content that is best delivered using technology, but the method of student interaction may also be possible in a paper-and-pencil environment. Here are two examples to show the difference.
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Example 1: Students are asked a multiple-choice question where the stimulus is a brief video. This is a technology-enabled item because the item includes a movie. However, the interaction is selecting the correct response from a list of possible responses. That could be done on paper as well as using technology.
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Example 2: Students are asked to drag a series of geometric figures into one of two categorical boxes. This is a technology-enhanced item because the interaction would be difficult to replicate in a paper-and-pencil environment. The technology facilitates the capturing of the student’s answer as they interact with the item.
Both assessment consortia have published technology-enhanced items on their Web sites. Links to both sets of sample items are provided below.
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Smarter Balanced: [Sorry, link broken.]
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PARCC: http://www.parcconline.org/samples/item-task-prototypes
References
Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, (2011). Technology-enhanced item guidelines. [Link broken]
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