Using Transaction-Level Data in Online Assessment

• Main Author: Nyland, Robert Scott
• Format: Others
• Published: BYU ScholarsArchive 2016
• Subjects: data; feedback; performance based assessment; educational technology; Educational Psychology
• Online Access: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/6437; https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=7437&context=etd

This article format dissertation explores the benefits of using detailed forms of assessment to enable feedback in educational contexts, and includes three separate, yet related articles. In the first article, I reviewed the current state of educational research in using online learning tools that collect detailed data regarding student learning. The article examined the type of data being collected, the way that these data are processed, and how the results are presented to instructors and students as feedback. In the second article, I describe a special case of these detailed forms of assessment in an Introduction to Microsoft Excel class, and look at the potential benefits of using transaction-level data to give feedback to instructors and students. This article provides empirical evidence for the difference between transaction-level data and final answer data in identifying student knowledge gaps and misconceptions. In the final article, I analyzed knowledge gaps and misconceptions identified in the Introduction to Microsoft Excel class by using additional student activity data (video watching and reading) to predict these knowledge gaps. This article serves as a case study for using data from integrated learning environments to provide feedback regarding student performance.