Feedback on student work is a key mechanism for improving learning in higher education (HE) and can be provided in a variety of forms. Recently, many institutions have moved to the provision of electronic feedback, although evidence for the effectiveness of this is mixed. While many studies evaluating the students' perception of feedback are now…

Assessment pervades the learning process. This paper provides an overview of the application of technology to support and enhance diagnostic, formative and summative assessment. The focus is on examining how it can replace what already exists, improve the functionality, catalyse a redesign of the process and in some circumstances, make possible…

In recent years, context-aware mobile learning (CAML) has been widely applied to various fields and has become a popular issue in educational research. Despite the tremendous potential of CAML and its growing significance, continued evaluations and refinements under the advice of field experts and instructors are crucial to ensure its validity,…

Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) appear to be one of the most widely used computer-based technologies for teaching and learning, and may emerge as a potential tool for e-assessment. However, little is known about how VLE tools are used in various forms of assessment and what kinds of teaching practice the use of such technologies brings about.…

Despite the widespread availability of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and some research into specific pedagogical practices using them, there has been little research on the role of these technologies in shaping broader pedagogical approaches in higher education (HE). Increased experimentation in using ICTs raises questions…

In this paper, we take a designer's look at how the activities and data of learning and assessment can be structured in immersive virtual game environments called Massively Multi-Player Online Games (MMOG). In doing so, we examine the channels of evidence through which learning and assessment activities are derived in MMOGs, offering examples of…

While technology has the potential to create opportunities for transformative learning in higher education, it is often used to merely reinforce didactic teaching that aims to control access to expert knowledge. Instead, educators should consider using technology to enhance communication and provide richer, more meaningful platforms for the social…

Concept maps have been widely employed for helping students organise their knowledge as well as evaluating their knowledge structures in a wide range of subject matters. Although researchers have recognised concept maps as being an important educational tool, past experiences have also revealed the difficulty of evaluating the correctness of a…

The focus of this paper is on the use of e-technologies to enable higher education to better assess aspects of learning that have proved difficult to assess using more conventional means. Higher education describes the knowledge and abilities it intends its graduates to have acquired before graduation, and it has a wide range of approaches to…

The author argues that to examine the relationship between technology use and student outcomes, the quality of technology use--how, and what, technology is used--is a more significant factor than the quantity of technology use--how much technology is used. This argument was exemplified by an empirical study that used both angles to examine the…

A natural language based system has been used to author and mark short-answer free-text assessment tasks. Students attempt the questions online and are given tailored and relatively detailed feedback on incorrect and incomplete responses, and have the opportunity to repeat the task immediately so as to learn from the feedback provided. The answer…

e-Assessment cannot benefit learners, and so education, unless it supports them in doing something differently in future. What, however, are learners trying to do better? This paper adopts a perspective in which learners simultaneously self-regulate multiple variables that are relevant to learning, and develops a theoretical argument that a key…

While a number of studies have been conducted on the impact of online assessment and teaching methods on student learning, the field does not seem settled around the promised benefits of such approaches. It is argued that the reason for this state of affairs is that few studies have been able to control for a number of confounding factors in…

Translation of questionnaire instruments to digital administration systems, both self-contained and web-based, is widespread and increasing daily. However, the literature is lean on controlled empirical studies investigating the potential for differential effects of administrative methods. In this study, two university student samples were…

Educators have long debated the usefulness (or otherwise) of final examinations; a debate that has typically revolved around the relative merits of closed-book exams, open-book exams, take-home exams or their substitution by some other assessment format (e.g., project work). This paper adds a new dimension to the debate by considering how the…