An open-book, 3-hour exam, 150-item exam was reasonable successful
Average mark was 71%
In previous years the exam had been too hard (not enough time; 2 hours); added one hour (2 → 3 hours)
Reduced draft from 165 to 150 items
Redrafted and reselected the items in 2008.
Approximately 2 to 3 days was put in – quite a lot – to set this up even better for this year and the future.
There is still work to be done in this area
In 2009, prepare the items more continuously and systematically as part of tackling each topic.
Become more clear about whether the items are to be stored in Respondus or other format – currently Respondus files are the master, but this is somewhat inefficient in selecting items.
The 2007 idea was to create a large database with randomly selected items by topic area, using Respondus
In part, this is to allow the creation of random quizzes, etc. e.g., in Moodle
The 2008 idea is create a reasonably standard exam, and use the other items for a test bank which could be on Wikiversity and/or Moodle for each chapter
Moderated by: Melisah Feeney (see email comments)
Faculty review by: Laurie Grealish (see .doc comments)
Item length in many cases was reduced.
Item style was made more consistent e.g., with punctuation.
American spelling changed to Australian.
Manual formatting applied
Keep with next
Hanging indent for answers
Reviewed item response frequency analysis from 2007 and redrafted accordingly; some items were also further redrafted further away from the textbooks items.
Added items to cover extra Environmental and tutorial topics
Ch9 – Selection didn't match the Respondus allocation – re-allocate the Respondus allocation accordingly.
Ch10 – Attraction For items 104-110 no selection was made – adjust Respondus; instead selected 2 from 35-46
Ch11 – Selections didn't match Respondus; adjust Respondus
Ch12 – Selections didn't match Respondus; adjust Respondus
Process
Master databases by chapter/topic in Respondus
Planned number of items per topic (170)
Manually selected items per topic, based on Sets in Respondus
Manually merged and reordered items for exam draft
Removed 5 items to bring to 165 (didn't record which ones)
To do
This exam could/should be used as basis for future exams (build and improve on it)
Eventually further reduced to 150 items
Retrospectively create a 2008 Ch plan for the 150 items as the new Master. (see notes page in Ch plan)
Suggest re-using with relatively minor modification, based on:
Should get some up-front planning thought and on-going preparation during Semester
Check/concentrate more on lecture content (as I prepare each lecture).
Conduct item response analysis. Proof-reading could further reveal useful copy-edits.
Most efficient would probably be to revise the word processing version; making master adjustments in the Respondus database.
To find item numbers, text search the 165 item with codes draft from 2008 (could make a new one of these up).
Request to schedule this at a similar time as 2008 - preferably Fri am in the first week of exams in 6B4*. Alternatively it could be Wed or Thu am of exams.
Alternatively, this could be an ideal unit to deliver an online Moodle exam. However, to be fair, this would require either regular Moodle quizzed (by topic) or a practice exam.
