straightforward questions, which you often use, to save you time (and
boredom) in marking learners’ answers by hand.
4 Look at the most common mistakes made by learners in existing tests or
exercises. It is often possible to turn these mistakes into distractors in
computer-delivered multiple-choice tests. This means that you have
the chance to allow learners to make these anticipated mistakes, then use the
computer to give them immediate feedback, which is a useful supplement to
the feedback from tutor-marked work.
5 Consider using computer-delivered tests for feedback only, rather than
assessment. While the computer programs may normally be used for testing
and keeping learners’ scores, it is easy to disable the scoring if you wish to
do so, and to design tests simply to exploit the benefit of learners getting
immediate feedback on their answers.
6 Don’t forget to use a few words of praise for learners who answer a
question correctly. Simply saying ‘good’ or ‘well done’ provides useful
positive feedback to learners, and the computer doesn’t get tired of repeating
such words or phrases.
7 Be gentle with incorrect answers. Learners who pick an incorrect option
may need reassurance. They also may need help in seeing why their option
was incorrect, and not just to be told what the correct (or best) option would
have been. Don’t resort to the default feedback provided by the computer
program, which may be as blunt and unhelpful as ‘your answer is wrong; the
correct answer is...’
8 Help learners to consolidate their learning. When feedback is being
provided on-screen, it is particularly helpful to learners if they can still see
the question and the options from which they made their selection, while
reading your feedback to the option that they selected.
9 Consider using a printout of the test, and the feedback. Many computer-
delivered assessment packages can be programmed to provide a printout for
each learner of all of the questions, along with feedback on the options they
selected, as well as an overall result and feedback on their overall
performance. It is useful for learners to have something they can look at
again, when they are not at the computer or terminal.
10 Make the most of the software. It may be possible to programme the
software to keep records for each learner, and for a whole class, and to print
out class performance lists. It may also be possible to get the software to
analyse the performance of each individual question and option. The
software can work out the facility value of each question, showing which
questions proved to be easy or hard in general. It can also compute the
discrimination index of each question, showing which questions are best at
separating the more able learners from the less able ones.
11 Pilot your tests or exercises well. Each time you run a particular computer-
delivered test or exercise, you can normally learn a lot about how the
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