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Features
Improving the Administration of Mathematics Placement Tests
7/3/2006
By Scott Sutherland
A University administered placement tests are common practice and normally occur in the areas of mathematics and science. However, the administration process for placement exams often differs across colleges and universities. Some perform the test at the beginning or end of the summer, while some do it during orientation. Some have the students come in to the high schools or universities to take it, while others send it to the students’ homes.
The resources required to administer placement tests are substantial. The State University of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook’s mathematics department has been giving a placement test to every freshman and a large fraction of their transfer students for 15 years, having developed a series of multiple choice questions ranging from arithmetic through to the end of single variable calculus.
For Stony Brook, the test was traditionally administered during orientation at the beginning of the year using paper-based Scantron cards. As such, the school was faced with the logistical nightmare of conducting the test, scanning and recording the grades in their student record, and advising the appropriate course placement all in one morning, so the students could register that afternoon. Not only was this process harrowing for the staff and faculty, the students often complained that they weren’t prepared, that they didn’t know they had to write a test, and therefore, the results did not truly represent their ability.
Stony Brook wanted to be able to administer the placement test before the students came to orientation and they wanted the students to be as prepared as possible. Maplesoft’s Maple T.A. addressed all of these issues by automating the entire process, from assessment to diagnostics, enabling the placement test to be done anytime, anywhere.
For Stony Brook, using Maple T.A. was a natural progression since the math department had already been using Maple™, a powerful and intuitive tool for mathematical research and evaluation.
The department chose to work with Maple T.A. for several reasons. Adoption was easy and straightforward. The campus already had a set of existing questions that could be dropped in without having any rewrites. The existing questions included a wide variety of question types including Maple-graded, standard, multiple selection, short answer/essay, matching, true/false, and mathematical formula. This allowed the campus to focus in on how the exam would be presented to the incoming students, rather than having to develop a new question bank.
Since the students are assessed at home and have a limited period of time to become familiar with the program, it was very important that the interface be intuitive and simple. The assessment is delivered through standard Web browsers, making it easy for students to interact with the system.
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