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.
Key Takeaways
- Comprehensive training programs and professional learning communities can help teachers develop the skills to use digital assessments effectively.
- Technology-enhanced items (TEIs) make digital assessments more engaging for students so that they’ll give maximum effort.
- Digital assessment platforms should offer a range of accessibility features to accommodate students with special needs and disabilities.
- School leaders can address data privacy challenges by choosing digital assessment providers with ISO/IEC 27001 certification.
1. Teacher Training
Challenge
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.
Solution
The main solution to this challenge is comprehensive and ongoing training sessions. Some effective training strategies include the following:
- At the beginning of your training program, discuss the time-saving benefits of digital assessments—such as faster grading—with your staff. This step will boost teachers’ motivation to invest their time in learning to use the new technology.
- Show teachers how to use the basic features first. Then, gradually progress toward more advanced features after teachers demonstrate comfort with the basics.
- Include opportunities for hands-on practice during training sessions—such as creating test items or experimenting with scoring tools.
- Show teachers how to integrate digital assessments into their current curricula and lesson plans. For example, include time for discipline-specific breakout sessions where teachers review examples of digital assessments for the subjects they teach. Training experts can also meet with these groups to explain item creation and analytic features within the context of specific academic subjects.
- Host follow-up meetings and training sessions where teachers can share progress, add new skills, and collaborate on digital assessment strategies.
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.
2. Student Engagement
Challenge
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.
Solution
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:
- Graphic order: Rank items on an image—such as a map—in order of sequence, importance, largest to smallest, and so forth.
- Graphic associate: Match pairs of associated images.
- Hottext: Read a short passage and click on words or phrases that answer questions.
- Gap match: Read a short text and fill in blank spaces with choices from a word bank.
- Slider: Drag a slider on a horizontal scale to display a number or percentage.
- Hotspot: Click on portions of a map or other image to answer a question.
- Inline choice: For each blank space in a short block of text, choose the correct word from a drop-down menu to fill in the blank.
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.
3. Accessibility
Challenge
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.
Solution
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:
- Text magnification tools enlarge on-screen text and graphics, making them more accessible for students with low vision.
- Screen readers convert text into spoken audio so that students with reading difficulties or low to no vision can access the content.
- Alternative text descriptions help screen readers communicate the content of images and graphics for students with low to no vision.
- Color contrast between text and background colors on the screen is crucial for students with visual impairments, including those with color blindness.
- Adjustable font sizes allow students with visual impairments or reading difficulties to customize the display for readability.
- Closed captions and transcripts provide text for any audio content in the digital assessment so that users who are deaf or hard of hearing can access it.
- Keyboard navigation allows students who cannot use a mouse or touchpad to complete the test independently.
- Voice command tools enable students with physical disabilities to navigate digital assessments with vocal commands rather than a mouse or keyboard.
As a general rule, you should also ensure that any digital assessment product you’re considering meets Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
4. Data Privacy
Challenge
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.
Solution
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:
- A web application firewall to block hackers and malicious code attempts
- Penetration (PEN) tests to identify security weaknesses
- Compliance with the European Union’s General Data Protection Requirements (GDPR)—rigorous requirements for how the platform collects, stores, and uses personal data
- Protection from distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks that would make the digital assessment platform unavailable to legitimate users
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.
FAQs
What are the most common challenges of shifting to digital assessments?
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.
What are some effective ways to prepare teachers to use digital assessments?
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.
