Science 10 Pilot Update

You may already know about the department’s new direction towards common, official exams, and the use of new answer sheets using FormReturn. SCN1270 was chosen to pilot the new answer sheets this fall.

What does the Science 10 Pilot hope to achieve?

The pilot hopes to demonstrate the benefit of common exams and the feasibility of using FormReturn answer sheets. Another goal is to demonstrate the benefit of item and exam analysis to improve the quality of exams. We also hope to gather feedback from instructors and students using surveys about the new exam format and the answer sheets.

How do the new answer sheets work?

The FormReturn software allows us to quickly create custom answer sheets. These sheets are printed on 8.5 × 11 inch paper and copied. Once marked by students, the answer sheets can be batch scanned. The scanned images are then processed electronically by FormReturn. Each exam has an associated answer key that is used to score student responses.

Why use the electronic answer sheets?

Multiple answer sheets can be marked at once, accurately and very quickly. In addition to total scores, all the responses are captured in a database. In the graphs below, for each of the four questions, the totals for each multiple choice response are shown.  Capturing all the responses allows for detailed item analysis, such as examining the validity of distractors.

Science 10 Pilot Update

To date, we have processed a total of 70 answer sheets. While most students are filling out the answer sheets correctly, some need additional help. From the data collected so far, already some potential improvements to the exams have been identified.

Thank you to the instructors and students who are participating in the pilot. 

Want to learn how FormReturn works?

FormReturn demos planned for November 13 and November 20. Location TBD