Students’ Testing Preferences in Mathematics

Proceedings of ‏The 2nd International Conference on Research in Teaching and Education

Year: 2020

DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.33422/2nd.rteconf.2020.03.48

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Students’ Testing Preferences in Mathematics

Anne Uukkivi, Oksana Labanova, Vitali Retshnoi, Elena Safiulina and Marina Latõnina

ABSTRACT: 

Using a web-based environment for assessment can provide several advantages and disadvantages for both academics and students. The purpose of this study is to examine university students’ testing preferences in mathematics comparing their views on web-based and paper-based assessment. Two groups of engineering students, daytime and distance learners, were studied about their preferences and rationale. Based on the survey, statistical hypotheses were formulated and validated using chi-squared test statistics for categorical data. The results of this study showed that the vast majority of respondents thought that an opportunity to take web-based assessment tests in math was a good innovation. However, there were no statistically significant differences between the percentages of students who preferred to take assessment tests in math on computer, or on paper, or it did not matter to them. Those students who preferred to take web-based assessment tests were generally in favour of the replacement of paper-based classroom assessment tests with web-based tests, and vice versa. Those students who did not care whether to take paper-based or web-based assessment tests were in favour of partial replacement. The students’ willingness to replace web-based homework with paper-based tasks only slightly depended on their preferences. Qualitative content analysis was used to analyse open questions. The research has shown that the reasons for the learners’ preferences were mostly related to convenience and flexibility, environmental sustainability, complexity and academic fraud.

Keywords: students’ preferences; higher education; web-based testing; paper-based testing; survey.