The global pandemic brought new challenges and opportunities to the education sector. We have seen a massive rise in the graph of the Edtech industry and its stakeholders. However, the tutors still attach the same importance to assessing students through old, conventional methods as before.
Today, learning institutions seek new ways to implement e-learning, assessment, and digital management of their students, leaving tutors with a clear focus on their teaching techniques and lecture delivery. Digital assessments open up new possibilities for tutors, allowing them to create and mark assessments in no time.
The Key Differences
Traditional Testing
Traditional testing involves creating paper-based quizzes. Tutors are responsible for grading each test with undivided attention, all while writing personalized feedback for every student. The criteria for traditional tests are pre-defined, and based on this, tutors make decisions and set a mark for each student. The question types for traditional testing include essays, printed multiple-choice questions, or other handwritten responses from students. Traditional testing is time-consuming and adds to the stress of tutors.
Digital Assessments
Digital assessments involve the creation, marking, and publishing of tests for students with very little human intervention. The EdTech industry has developed numerous tools, making education easy. However, only a few have worked on making assessment building simple in education, like Assessified. Digital assessments allow you to auto-check assessments and add feedback on the go! Educators can easily track the progress of each student with advanced tools like Assessified. Thus, digital testing strategies are time-saving and assist in lowering the stress of tutors.
Challenges of Both Testing Methods
Traditional Testing
Traditional testing methods are known for their effective results on students. Over the years, we have seen what people have accomplished, and all the successful people today must have followed the conventional style of teaching and assessing. However, things are changing, and the conventional style of testing tends to be repetitive and boring for students.
Today’s rapidly growing world raves about innovation and technology. People tend to be lured away from old practices in a second. Thus, however impactful it might have been in the past, students of today will still not accept adopting old-school testing once introduced to digital learning. The following are the challenges of traditional testing:
- Triggering Student Anxiety
- Lack of Flexibility
- Limited Feedback
- Existence of Handwriting Biasness
- Negligence of Skill Development
Digital Assessments
Digital test creation offers a lot of ease to an institution’s management. However, digital assessment methods do not prove effective for all educational organizations. Not every other educational institute is filled with financial backing that could afford digitally powered, multi-tasking tools. Plus, not all tutors are tech-savvy when it comes to adopting modern-day technology and holding complete control over digital assessment tools in a short time. If your desired digital assessment tool doesn’t offer engagement, then it may lead to constant confusion among the students. The following are the challenges of digital assessments:
- Low Accessibility
- Data Vulnerability
- Financial Limitations
- Technical Instabilities
Gains of Both Testing Methods
Traditional Testing
Conventional or old-school testing methods have become a standard of assessment over the years. These testing approaches result in better learning outcomes for students. Below are the gains of traditional testing ways:
1. Flexibility of Question Types
The tutors have a wide range of question formats or techniques to test the students through paper-based exams. You can select any format from essays, short answer questions, descriptive questions, problem sums, and oral presentations to scenario-based questions.
2. Personalized Feedback
Traditional testing methods allow you to emphasize each student through personalized feedback. In this way, you can target each of your students and highlight their mistakes or weak areas.
3. Ease of Use
Such testing methods do not require prior tech knowledge before creation. Any tutor can easily write the test down on their notepad and send it over to the examination board for printing. Educational institutes that are far behind in technology are better off with conventional ways of assessing students.
Digital Assessments
Conventional means of conducting examinations are easily replaced with digitally created automated means of assessment. A digital assessment technique offers flexibility to students and convenience to educators. Moreover, school management can dig deeper into performance analytics and track the progress of each student individually. Below are the gains of traditional testing ways:
1. Increased Efficiency and Reduced Bias
With digital assessing, tutors won’t have to recalculate marks for rechecking to clear out potential errors. Digital assessment platforms reduce human error through the computerized scoring of students, leading to less bias.
2. Auto-Grading Feature
This feature helps reduce major problems for tutors, as they waste hours and hours on manual checking. Deciphering poorly written essays and other answers is another challenging task for evaluators. However, with the help of digital assessments, educators can simplify grading.
3. Anti-Cheating Features
Digital assessments offer anti-cheating features, which assist the learning institution in maintaining integrity across the classroom. Platforms like Assessified offer anti-cheating features while building assessments digitally.
What Works Best for Tutors?
Both methods of assessing your students lead to positive results in the academic journey of your students. However, to become a forward-thinking educator and evaluator, it’s better to adopt digital means of assessment. The traditional ways will soon be underutilized and eventually, the digital means will take over. So, it’s better to adopt today than to be forced to change later in a short time to learn about modern-day digital assessment tools.
