Large-scale assessment during a pandemic: Results from James Madison University’s remote assessment day
Publication Date
2022
Document Type
Article
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic posed many disruptions to higher education assessment in 2020. At James Madison University (JMU), ensuing modifications to long-standing, universitywide assessment necessitated unproctored remote testing instead of the typically proctored, onsite assessment. Applying such modifications to low-stakes educational assessment raises validity concerns. JMU’s assessment model allowed us to explore the effect of the different test administrations, taking into account pre-existing trends in cohorts’ performance. We compared assessment results on three tests (history, global issues, and scientific reasoning) between the 2020 entering class (tested remotely) and the previous four cohorts (tested in person). Our results revealed lower test performance and a bimodal distribution of effort scores in students tested remotely in 2020, but only on the more cognitively demanding scientific reasoning test, compared to the less arduous tests, history and global issues. Implications and limitations are discussed.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Alahmadi, S., & DeMars, C. E. (2022). Large-scale assessment during a pandemic: Results from James Madison University’s remote assessment day. Research and Practice in Assessment, 17 (3), 4-15.
