INFORMATIVE COMPUTER ADAPTIVE TESTING (ICAT): A STRATEGY FOR REDUCING THE NEED FOR STANDARD LECTURES

Informative Computer Adaptive Testing (ICAT) integrates Computer Adaptive Testing (CAT) with supplemental material presentation. ICAT was developed to address the desire to minimize conventional lectures while still providing background material in courses which maximize active-learning, including online, seated and lab courses. We are initially developing ICAT for introductory geoscience courses. ICAT uses the ability of CAT to determine the next question based on the answer to the previous question, and adds the display of instructional material, which may be text +/- images or video, between wrong answers and the next question. Wrong answers lead to sub-questions and eventually back to the missed question. The student thus must eventually answer every question correctly to complete the quiz. ICAT was designed to have students complete the quiz before beginning an active-learning session. ICAT may also be used to review material through quizzes after material has been learned, either immediately after or prior to an exam. . The program is a web based application based on open source software (JavaFX and MySQL) and is designed to be fully scalable.

Addition of questions to the question bank is automated using word-processor forms. Giving a quiz requires a one-line command from any computer. Grading of the exam, including percentage of main questions answered correctly the first time by each student is automated and analysis of questions, including a list of the fraction of students who correctly answered each question the first time and a histogram showing the total number of times students gave each possible answer to each question is also automatically generated. This report allows assessment of the student, of the effectiveness of instruction and of the exam questions .