The COVID-19 pandemic put academic institutions around the world in the difficult position of suddenly having to organize many lectures and examinations over online channels only, due to students' physical access to their campus buildings being restricted. While the search for possible solutions to this problem was often challenging, this…

The German school system employs centrally organized performance assessments (some of which are called "VERA") as a way of promoting lesson development. In recent years, several German federal states introduced a computer-based performance testing system which will replace the paper-pencil testing system in the future. Scores from…

Assessment is critical in postsecondary education, as it is at all levels. Assessments are classified into four types: diagnostic, summative, evaluative, and formative. Recent trends in assessment have migrated away from summative to formative evaluations. Formative evaluations help students develop expertise and concentrate their schedules, ease…

This paper aims to address Digital Readiness in Higher Education Institutions from the perspective of data-informed and evidence-based assessment of Digital Readiness. Related research suggests that existing instruments for assessing digitalization aspects are limited to self-assessment, and there is a need for data-informed frameworks that will…

Frequent forced switching between tasks has been shown to reduce switch costs and increase voluntary switch rates. So far, however, the boundary conditions of the influence of forced task switching on voluntary task switching are unknown. Thus, the present study was aimed to test different aspects of generalizability (across items, tasks, and…

Severity and centrality are two main kinds of rater effects posing threats to the validity and fairness of performance assessments. Adopting Jin and Wang's (2018) extended facets modeling approach, we separately estimated the magnitude of rater severity and centrality effects in the web-based TestDaF (Test of German as a Foreign Language) writing…

This is a comparative education study that aims to compare the digital documentation systems used in the preschool education programs and institutions in Turkey, Germany and Spain and to reveal the similarities and differences between these systems. The study was planned as a qualitative research in terms of its descriptive aspect, and as a…

Humanoid robots are gradually becoming part of everyday life as well as education. Virtual agents have demonstrated their benefits for years, and experts expect similar positive effects from the use of humanoid robots in education. Project H.E.A.R.T. (Humanoid Emotional Assistant Robots in Teaching), from Philipps-University Marburg, has developed…

This action research study presents the findings of using a formative assessment strategy in an online mathematic course during the world-wide outbreak of COVID-19 at the University of Passau, Germany. The main goals of this study were: (1) to enhance students' self-regulated learning by shifting the direction of assessment from instructors to the…

Computer-assisted assessment (CAA) is widely used in modern university courses in many different fields. It can be used both in formative and summative assessments and with different emphasis on (self-)training, grading, and feedback generation. This article reports on experiences from using the CAA tool "JACK" to support a university…

Writing essays and receiving feedback can be useful for fostering students' learning and motivation. When faced with large class sizes, it is desirable to identify students who might particularly benefit from feedback. In this article, we tested the potential of Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) for identifying poor essays. A total of 14 teaching…

Valid and reliable standardized assessment of nursing competencies is needed to monitor the quality of vocational education and training (VET) in nursing and evaluate learning outcomes for care work trainees with increasingly heterogeneous learning backgrounds. To date, however, the modeling of professional competencies has not yet evolved into…

Purpose: This paper investigates the potential of computerized adaptive testing for CMs to reduce test time. In the context of education and training, competency measurement (CM) is a central challenge in competency management. For complex CMs, a compromise must be addressed between the time available and the quality of the measurements.…

In the context of education and training, competency measurement (CM) is a central challenge in competency management. For complex CMs, a compromise must be addressed between the time available and the number of dimensions to be measured or the quality of the measurements. Increasing the efficiency of existing tests for CMs therefore poses a key…

Computers are considered innovative in classrooms, raising expectations of increased cognitive learning outcomes or motivation with effects on Deeper Learning (DL). The "new medium", however, may cause cognitive overloads. Combined with gender-related variations in ability, self-efficacy or self-confidence, computers may even diminish…