Tests and Surveys
Blackboard Tests and Surveys are a great way to assess the progress of your students. Faculty find the test tool helpful for short self assessments on the course material. Surveys are anonymous and have the same functions as the test tool but the answers are not associated with a particular student in the class. Faculty use surveys for student evaluations of the course and for quick polls about how students feel the course is moving along during the semester.
Creating Tests
The process for creating a test is the same as for a survey. After creating (or copying/importing from another course), you will need to deploy the test in order for students to access it.
Item Analysis
You can obtain statistics on overall test performance and on individual test questions using item analysis. This data helps you recognize questions that might not adequately discriminate between students who understand the material and those who do not. You can use this information to improve questions for future tests or to adjust credit on current attempts. Ineffective or misleading question are identified easily, corrected in the Test Canvas, and are re-graded automatically.
To learn more, see Item Analysis.
Test Availability Exceptions
Instructors can select one or more groups of students and make exceptions to existing availability settings. These exceptions can be used to provide an accommodation to a disabled student, or provide accommodations for technology and language differences.
These settings can be changed at any time, even after the test has been attempted by some students. If conflicts in rules occur, the most permissive settings for that user or group of users is granted. For example, students would receive the greatest number of attempts, longest availability time, and so on.
Test availability can be managed within the test options area.
Test Access Log
The test access log shows a detailed list of every interaction that students engage in when taking a test. If a student claims to have started a test the log will show the time the test was started. If a network or internet disruption occurred during the test for example, the log would show an unusual gap in the time. The access log can be retrieved when viewing the assessment attempt:
Reviewing Survey Results
Surveys are anonymous, so you cannot see individuals’ answers. You can only see which students have completed the survey because of green checkmarks that appear in the grade box in the survey column.
There are a couple of ways to view the results:
- In the Grade Center, click the drop down button at the top of the survey column and choose “Attempts Statistics.” Here you see the percentages of responses by question.
- To view the results in a spreadsheet, click the drop down button at the top of the survey column and choose “Download Results.” The defaults can be left alone, and choose “Click to download results.” You can either open them directly with Excel or save the file to your computer.