Exams
| Cover sheet for Test Scoring & Analysis |
General Test Information
Opscan Forms | Multiple Form Exams
Additional Test-Related Reports, by Request
To assure proper processing of opscan forms, please ask students to:
- Use a Number 2 Pencil only. Do not use pens; the scanner cannot read ink.
- Do not fold, staple, tape, bend, tear, get wet, or otherwise damage opscans. Remember, these forms must go through a machine. In order to run, the sheets must be flat and in good condition. Forms that are too damaged to run will have to be recopied. However, photocopies will not work, since the scanner must read timing marks at precise locations, among other requirements. (Only the Gray forms are designed to be folded in a specific fashion to envelope size for mailing.) Thus, it is not advisable to have students take opscans home.
- When filling in circles, make marks heavy and black, filling in the entire circle.
- Multiple marks are not allowed - Only one choice should be marked per item and if an item is to be omitted, leave all choices blank.
- Use all 9 spaces for the ID number, adding zeros if necessary. (Forms without a complete ID are rejected and scores are assigned to a dummy number.)
- Be sure students fill in the corresponding circle to which form they have, if there is more than one version of the test.
- Students must code-in their Seat number right-aligned, if used.
- Students must code-in their Group number, if used.
General Test Information
- You will need to fill out a cover sheet for each exam submitted. You can fill one in online, print it out, and bring it in with your exams. We also have them outside our door and in our office; they are pink half-sized sheets labeled "Request for Test Scoring and Analysis"
- Instructors must submit answer key(s) / "master" with the correct responses filled out on Opscan(s). Leave the ID area blank and just right Key or Key A, Key B, etc. in the name area.
- If a question is to be omitted, leave all item choices for that question blank on your key(s) and student sheets. Do not put X's or lines through the blank answer choices on the key and warn students not to do so as well.
- It is not necessary to sort student opscan sheets by form before submission to Testing & Data Services.
- Do not make multiple marks (more than one filled-in bubble per item). The scanner will pick up only one response per item. If questions are of the form "fill in all that apply", etc., they will need to be scored by hand or rewritten prior to distribution.
- Do not fold, staple, tape, bend, tear, get wet, or otherwise damage opscans. Remember, these forms must go through a machine. In order to run, the sheets must be flat and in good condition. Forms that are too damaged to run will have to be recopied. However, photocopies will not work, since the scanner must read timing marks at precise locations, among other requirements. (Only the Gray forms are designed to be folded in a specific fashion to envelope size for mailing.)
- Photocopies of forms cannot be processed, since the scanner must read timing marks at precise locations, among other requirements.
- Forms must all be face-up and aligned in the same direction (the bottom right corner is cut at a 45 degree angle to help correctly align Opscans).
- If using multiple forms, it is preferable that your answer keys be in alphabetic order, beginning with "A", with no letter omitted. Put keys in order on top of student Opscans, with a cover sheet on top.
Results are returned to instructors electronically as an e-mail attachment. For each student, output shows ID and name, number of correct responses, percent correct, t-score, number of questions omitted, seat number, which form the student used, and a processing sequence number (which is printed at the top left of each Opscan sequentially, when scanned) to help you locate a specific Opscan after processing. Also included are:
- Histogram showing a graphical distribution of scores, with one asterisk for each student
- Item Analysis, which can be used to determine which test questions were weak or represented unsatisfactory levels of achievement
- Statistics, including number of students, means, and standard deviations
- Information on students omitting a form letter, marking more than one answer for a question, and forms with a substantial number of light marks that may not have been processed correctly. These messages can be found near the top of the report.
For more information, see Understanding Test Output.
Opscan Forms
Testing & Data Services offers several choices in opscan forms for student answer sheets. Standard forms are available free of charge to faculty and staff. Most commonly used are "orange" sheets for up to 60 questions and "purple" sheets for up to 160 questions. A "green" sheet is also available on which up to 48 questions may be printed directly on the form. (See opscan forms for more information.) All sheets allow up to 10 choices for each question and no question may have more than one correct answer.
Space is also included for:
- Student ID number
- Form (or key) number (used when more than one version of a test is administered to a class)
- Seat number (optional, must be right-aligned)
- Group number (optional, used to designate up to 10 different groups of the instructor's choosing. When used, results are tallied by group along with totals.)
Multiple Form Exams
Multiple keys or forms may be used to discourage cheating; the order of test questions may be scrambled for different students or tests may have different questions altogether. Each key must be filled in on an Opscan and brought in along with the students' Opscans.
For tests with scrambled questions, optional output can be provided showing combined statistics for each test question. To obtain this, instructors must provide an unscrambling key showing the position on subsequent forms of each question on the first form.
Should a student forget to indicate a form letter, the responses are scored against all keys. If the highest resulting score is at least 1.5 times as high as the next highest, it is assumed that the form yielding the highest score is what the student used. Regardless, the scores from all forms are printed out in descending order in an error message near the beginning of the output.
We do not need the Opscans to be separated into stacks by form, unless you want a separate file for each form.
Additional Test-Related Reports, by Request
Rescores
If you accidently miscode an answer on an exam key or want to delete a poor question we can re-grade your exam. Either call us at 1-5413 or reply to the e-mail we sent. Just tell us the change(s) you want to make. We do not need to reprocess the opscans.
Occasionally, due to a typo on your exam you may want to have two correct answers. Please call us if this is the case. It is much easier to delete the question but we can produce a supplementary report with the optional choice as correct.
Error Listings (Wrongs)
Upon request, Testing & Data Services will provide an additional listing of each examinee's incorrectly answered items (including multiple marks). This report can eliminate the need to return opscan sheets to examinees. The listing also indicates the number of omissions and the percentage of light marks.
Unscrambling Analysis
If you have multiple forms and simply rearranged the questions, we can also provide you with a combined Item Analysis. You will need to give us a listing of the question locations on Form B, etc. that match the questions on Form A.
Below is an example of the kind of information we need. Form A question numbers are in sequence in the leftmost column.
This sample exam has 3 forms - Forms B and C are scrambled versions of Form A.
Key
(Form) AKey
(Form) BKey
(Form) C1 10 4 2 6 2 3 9 7 4 4 3 5 8 1 6 1 5 7 5 8 8 2 10 9 7 6 10 3 9
This means that Form A Question 1 is also located on Form B as Question number 6 and Form C as Question number 5.The choices for each question must remain in the exact order on all forms.
Test Design & Analysis
Educational Technologies offers assistance in assessment design.
For more information, see www.edtech.vt.edu/edtech/id/index.html.
Testing Memos
Although these memos are offered for your information, Testing & Data Services no longer has the expertise to support them.
During the 1978-79 academic year, a Testing Advisory Committee served the Research and Measurement Division of the Learning Resources Center. In response to faculty inquiries about various aspects of testing, the Committee prepared a series of seven Testing Memos, which were circulated every few weeks to users of Research and Measurement's test scoring and analysis service.
Since 1991, four additional Memos have been circulated. Below are the complete set with slight editing changes.
Members of the Committee were Robert B. Frary (Chairman), Lawrence H. Cross, Jerard F. Kehoe, and Larry J. Weber. Frary wrote MEMOS 1 and 2, Cross wrote MEMOS 3 and 6. Kehoe wrote MEMOS 4 and 5, and Weber wrote MEMO 7. Subsequent MEMOS 8-10 were written by Frary, and MEMO 11 is by Cross.