| An Interview with Jenny Betts | |
| “Int” refers to Pam the interviewer and “RES” refers to the respondent Jenny Betts | |
| Int: | Jenny can you provide some context and background to MAF101 and online assessment? |
| RES: | Yes Pam, MAF101 is a core unit in the BCom. It is the first year Finance unit and it runs on campus at Burwood, Geelong and Warrnambool and off campus and also through our partners in Malaysia and Singapore. |
| Int: | You have had quite a bit of experience with online assessment over the years, I can recall. |
| RES: | Yes, we ran multiple choice tests on First Class initially and then for a couple of years on WebMCQ through McGraw-Hill. In 2003 we ran a multiple choice test on DSO before the Faculty moved onto DSO. |
| Int: | Jenny, why do you use online tests, in particular MCQ in MAF101? |
| RES: | The first few topics in the Finance unit lend themselves more to testing than to an assignment. For example, the second topic is financial mathematics and that is aimed to introduce the students to financial maths, just as an introduction. Not all students will go on and study finance and a lot of the students who come to us do not have a lot of financial maths experience, so the testing lends itself to them getting into the topic and us to assess them. |
| Int: | With the introduction of DSO, Deakin Studies Online, what were the particular unique opportunities presented by the use of DSO? |
| RES: | That was really the testing feature which has a multiple choice feature, a calculated feature or a short answer feature. We thought we would try the calculated feature and that is what we have done, to produce a test that each question is calculated. |
| Int: | So that means instead of writing one question, we can get DSO to generate multiple questions? |
| RES: | Yes, what we do is set up a question, it can be quite a simple question where something is multiplied by something and in the question we can set up variables. Based on the variables we can then generate multiple questions. |
| Int: | Okay, tell me about the implementation process of the assessment task, what did you have to do? |
| RES: | Firstly we had to build the test. We set up the questions, for example if you invested so many dollars for three years at so many percent compound, how much would you have after three years? We then termed the dollar amount and the rate as variables and then we build the algorithm that will calculate it and we put that into DSO. We ask it to analyse the variables, then we put in a range for the variables for example, we might want the dollar amounts to be between $8000 and $9000 and the rate to be between 6.5% to 8.5%. We also build in a tolerance, that if the students in calculating their questions, rounded a little out. We build in a tolerance and then we ask it to generate an answer set and in effect that gives us twenty versions of each question. So that when the students are presented with the test they get twenty questions and their questions are in random order and their questions are different to another student's questions. |
| Int: | That's great. It certainly provides individuated questions and a unique question. How about introducing this assessment task to the student, how did you go about doing that? |
| RES: | Having run the multiple choice tests we were aware of the problems that we might face, so we worked really hard to ensure that the students have all the information they need right at the very start. We put this in a document and in it we have several headings, for example we say before commencing we make sure they know what topics they should have finished, that they should have accessed any announcements in DSO, that they should have accessed the formula sheet to accompany the test and we also tell them that any questions about this, we have a transparent process so they must leave them in DSO and we answer them, so that everybody has access to the same information. Then in the test we tell them how it will be presented to them. That each student will have an individual test. We give them about five days to do the test and we start… it's week days and weekends so that the time can suit everybody. |
| Int: | Are those five days… is that… have you got five days to complete the test or have you got a specified period of time within that five days? |
| RES: | We give them two hours to complete the test, so that if they log on, if they are accidentally logged off they log back in. They have two hours from when they start to finish it. But they have any time within the five days to log on and do it. |
| Int: | After the implementation, were there many problems? Were there any problems from your perspective? Were there problems experienced by the student? |
| RES: | Before we start the test, it is a new experience for the students, so sometimes they will say “I'm going on holidays, I can't do it” but once we talk to them, they don't think of alternatives. I have had them caravanning around New Zealand, at conferences and moving house and they all adjust to finding somewhere different to doing it. Last time we had a couple of on campus students in California and they went to a library in Santa Barbara, but they discovered that they could only have half an hour to do it, access at the library. So they had to jump in their car and race around to an internet café to log on and finish it. I've also had a student on HMAS Arunta in the Gulf who did it by satellite connection. They find a way to do it, no matter where they are. |
| Int: | Has it met your original objectives in terms of providing a unique assessment item for students and other objectives? |
| RES: | Yes, it has more than met our objectives for being unique. Students seem to enjoy it. They send us e-mails “thanks very much, I have really enjoyed the chance to do this”. With our twenty versions of each question, in later tests we think we could expand that perhaps to 40 or up to 100 versions of each question and we will introduce new questions into the data base as well. |
| Int: | So, it is the start of a big resource bank of calculated questions? |
| RES: | Yeah. |
| Int: | Thanks Jenny. I think this is a really innovative use of DSO and I am sure others are going to benefit from your creativity. Thank you very much. |
| RES: | Thank you Pam and I should also say, when I did do this and the problems we had in setting out the algorithm, that wasn't an easy task and I did it in conjunction with Kannan Thuraisamy at Burwood, who was absolutely wonderful in setting this test up. |
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