Digital assessments offer many benefits, such as rich insights into student learning and more time for teachers to focus on students. But educators may feel skeptical about shifting to digital assessments because they present certain challenges.
Learning how to use a new platform may seem overwhelming, or teachers may be concerned about the impact on student engagement. Accessibility and data privacy are other considerations.
The good news is that these challenges all have feasible solutions enabling educators to maximize the cost-to-value of a new digital assessment strategy.
Whether you’re researching different assessment tools or actively planning a digital assessment rollout, this article equips you with the solutions to 4 common digital assessment challenges.
As with any new technology, teachers may lack the necessary skills to fully utilize all the features of a digital assessment platform. Creating new test items and analyzing student performance data may feel overwhelming for teachers unfamiliar with the software.
Teachers may also be concerned that learning how to use digital assessments will be time-consuming. They may feel skeptical about how they’ll fit initial training and future troubleshooting into their already demanding workloads.
The main solution to this challenge is comprehensive and ongoing training sessions. Some effective training strategies include the following:
Another solution is to foster a culture of continuous learning and support through professional learning communities (PLCs). A PLC is a group of teachers that meets routinely throughout the school year to collaborate on teaching strategies. Within each PLC, designate a digital assessment leader who can field questions about the platform and lead follow-up training sessions for the group.
Student engagement can also be a concern. Digital assessments that lack variety or interactive features may not hold students’ interest, especially if they over-rely on multiple-choice questions.
Disengagement can also lead to rapid-guessing—submitting answers in less time than it takes to read the question fully. These issues undermine the test’s validity because achievement is not being accurately measured.
Educators can make digital assessments engaging with technology-enhanced items (TEIs)—a type of question where students use technology such as drag-and-drop or multimedia features to actively engage with the content. A 2019 study found that TEIs showed the lowest rate of rapid-guessing and improved student engagement in K-12 math, science, and reading portions of the Measure of Academic Progress (MAP) Growth assessment.
When creating a digital assessment, include a variety of TEI types. Some of the many TEIs that TAO offers include the following:
Using a variety of TEIs can also engage more learners because they target a wider range of learning preferences—such as visual or kinesthetic—than standard multiple-choice items.
An especially critical challenge posed by digital assessments is ensuring accessibility for students with disabilities. In the United States, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reports that nearly 15% of K-12 students receive special education services. So without accessibility features, digital assessments present disadvantages for a considerable section of the school population.
In order to provide inclusive testing experiences and comply with educational laws, ensure that accessibility tools such as those listed below are available and fully functioning:
As a general rule, you should also ensure that any digital assessment product you’re considering meets Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
Online assessments can also pose privacy and security challenges. A digital assessment platform usually contains personal information about students, such as names and test results. This information can be targeted by hackers, compromising student privacy and safety. It can be especially devastating when these cyberattacks lead to identity theft.
One solution to this is to ensure that your digital assessment provider meets rigorous cybersecurity standards, such as the ISO/IEC 27001. These are best practices for information security management from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). If a provider holds ISO/IEC 27001 certification—as TAO does—it undergoes audits and reviews to ensure that digital assessment data is secure.
For example, TAO’s performance and security framework include policies, practices, and protocols such as:
In the US, the Federal Trade Commission (FCC) will soon offer another promising solution for security challenges. A new FCC cybersecurity program will offer school districts grants of between $15,000 and $1,500,000 to purchase cybersecurity technology such as advanced firewalls and virus protection. The FCC expects to open the grant application process as early as the summer or fall of 2024.
School leaders should also inform teachers about cybersecurity threats and procedures that specifically apply to any digital assessment process they’re using. After adopting a new digital assessment technology, update employee handbooks to cover policies for using digital assessment data safely and escalating suspicious activity.
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Shifting to digital assessments comes with challenges—such as meeting responsibilities for teacher training, accessibility, and data privacy, as well as ensuring student engagement—but each of these has a feasible solution.
By understanding these challenges and solutions, educators can confidently choose a digital assessment strategy with maximum benefits for students and teachers.
For more ideas about how to address digital assessment challenges, please see 5 Major Pitfalls to Avoid When Implementing Assessment Tech and other articles in the TAO blog.
Some of the most common challenges to address when moving your assessments to a digital platform include teacher training, student engagement, accessibility, and data privacy.
Effective training strategies include sharing the benefits of digital assessments, creating opportunities for hands-on practice, and providing peer-to-peer support through professional learning communities.