Computer graded exams

STUDENT PERSPECTIVE: Multiple-choice, computer-graded exams are impersonal and not a good way to test my understanding of this complicated material.

Fact: This testing method is, unfortunately, dictated by the economic realities at KSU:

• There are 600-800 students in the course.
• In order to avoid having too much material on a single exam, we test you every two weeks, for a total of 7 exams.
• In order to cover the objectives on the exams properly, we need to have at least 20-40 questions.
• If we gave exams with short written answers, it might take a grader a minimum of 30 seconds to grade one question on one exam.

So, for 750 students and an average exam with 30 questions and a minimum grading time of 30 seconds per question, it would take 187.5 person hours per exam (1,312.5 hours for all exams) just to do the grading. That’s far more hours than the 60 hours you actually spend in class each semester! This would mean a much longer wait for results on the exam and a reduction in the number of instructors available in the classroom actually teaching. So we use the most efficient grading method for our exams, and currently that is the ScanTron card system (which still takes a lot of person-hours to deal with).