Designing for learner engagement with computer-based testing

The issues influencing student engagement with high-stakes computer-based exams were investigated, drawing on feedback from two cohorts of international MA Education students encountering this assessment method for the first time. Qualitative data from surveys and focus groups on the students’ examination experience were analysed, leading to the identification of engagement issues in the delivery of high-stakes computer-based assessments.The exam combined short-answer open-response questions with multiple-choice-style items to assess knowledge and understanding of research methods. The findings suggest that engagement with computer-based testing depends, to a lesser extent, on students’ general levels of digital literacy and, to a greater extent, on their information technology (IT) proficiency for assessment and their ability to adapt their test-taking strategies, including organisational and cognitive strategies, to the online assessment environment. The socialisation and preparation of students for computer-based testing therefore emerge as key responsibilities for instructors to address, with students requesting increased opportunities for practice and training to develop the IT skills and test-taking strategies necessary to succeed in computer-based examinations. These findings and their implications in terms of instructional responsibilities form the basis of a proposal for a framework for Learner Engagement with e-Assessment Practices.

Different views on Digital Scholarship: separate worlds or cohesive research field?

This article presents a systematic review of the literature on Digital Scholarship, aimed at better understanding the collocation of this research area at the crossroad of several disciplines and strands of research. The authors analysed 45 articlesin order to draw a picture of research in this area. In the first phase, the articles were classified, and relevant quantitative and qualitative data were analysed. Results showed that three clear strands of research do exist: Digital Libraries, Networked Scholarship and Digital Humanities. Moreover, researchers involved in this research area tackle the problems related to technological uptake in the scholar's profession from different points of view, and define the field in different – often complementary – ways, thus generating the perception of a research area still in need of a unifying vision. In the second phase, authors searched for evidence of the disciplinary contributions and interdisciplinary cohesion of research carried out in this area through the use of bibliometric maps. Results suggest that the area of Digital Scholarship, still in its infancy, is advancing in a rather fragmented way, shaping itself around the above-mentioned strands, each with its own research agenda. However, results from the cross-citation analysis suggest that the Networked Scholarship strand is more cohesive than the others in terms of cross-citations.