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Cited by 128Educational Technology and E-LearningEducational Technology and AssessmentOnline Learning and Analytics

Optimising Moodle quizzes for online assessments

Open access
Gamage, Sithara H. P. W., Ayres, Jennifer R., Behrend, Monica B., Smith, Elizabeth J.·2019·International Journal of STEM Education
DOI 10.1186/s40594-019-0181-4
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Abstract

Computer-aided learning management systems (LMSs) are widely used in higher education and are viewed as beneficial when transitioning from conventional face-to-face teaching to fully online courses. While LMSs have unique tools for transferring and assessing knowledge, their ability to engage and assess learners needs further investigation. This paper focuses on a study examining the LMS “Moodle” to ascertain the effectiveness of “Moodle quizzes” to improve, assess and distinguish knowledge in a civil engineering course at an Australian university. The course has a database comprising 62 formative and 61 summative quiz questions with embedded text, images, audio and video. This study investigates the use of these quiz questions with four course cohorts and 169 students. The quizzes assessed competencies of students during various stages of a study period through automated marking. The suitability of questions to assess and distinguish student knowledge levels was determined using a psychometric analysis based on facility index (FI) and the discrimination index (DI) statistics embedded within the Moodle quizzes. This study highlights strategies used to set and review quiz questions for formative and summative assessments. Results indicated that students were engaged and satisfied in the formative assessment because they viewed the interactive videos between 2 and 6 times and 65% of students attempted all the formative questions. The FI indicated student pass rate for the summative questions and DI indicated the difficulty of these questions, while the combination of FI and DI results separated students with different knowledge levels. Using these Moodle statistics provided information to make effective decisions on how to improve the summative quizzes. The multimodal quizzes were effective in teaching and assessing a theoretical engineering course and provided efficient methods to replace conventional assessments. The FI and DI indexes are useful statistical tools in redesigning appropriate sets of questions. Time-poor academics will benefit from using these easily attainable Moodle statistics to inform decisions while revising the quizzes and making assessments more autonomous.

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  • Some studies investigated the usefulness of the online environment for instructors to organise assessments, the usefulness of giving responsibilities to students during assessment (mainly via peer assessments), and using Moodle statistics and analytics to evaluate and improve the quality assessment process.

    “Some studies which focused on the assessment process investigated the usefulness of the online environment for instructors to organise assessments, the usefulness of giving responsibilities to students during assessment (mainly via peer assessments), and using Moodle statistics and analytics to evaluate and improve the quality assessment process (Cakiroglu et al., 2017; Gamage et al., 2019;”

    From A systematic review on trends in using Moodle for teaching and learning (2022) · cites this paper as Gamage et al., 2019

  • Ten percent of the articles reviewed discussed the in-built statistical tools such as the facility index and discrimination index along with the databases available in LMSs for the use of educational and research purposes.

    “Ten percent of the articles reviewed discussed the in-built statistical tools such as the facility index and discrimination index along with the databases available in LMSs for the use of educational and research purposes (Fenu et al., 2017; Gamage et al., 2019; Monllaó Olivé et al., 2020).”

    From A systematic review on trends in using Moodle for teaching and learning (2022) · cites this paper as Gamage et al., 2019

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Authors
Gamage, S. H. P. W., Ayres, J. R., Behrend, M. B., & Smith, E. J.
Affiliations
University of South Australia (AU)
Corresponding author
Gamage, Sithara H. P. W.
ORCID
Venue
International Journal of STEM Education
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2019-08-13
Volume
6
Issue
1
ISSN
2196-7822 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1186/s40594-019-0181-4
OpenAlex
W2967444271
Cited by
128
References
38
Citations by year
2026: 5 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 21 · 2023: 31 · 2022: 30 · 2021: 21 · 2020: 12 · 2019: 1
FWCI
19.91
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • International Journal of STEM Education (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • UniSA Research Outputs Repository (University of South Australia) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Educational Technology and E-Learning
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Educational Technology and Assessment
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Science Applications › Online Learning and Analytics
Keywords
Moodle quizzes, online assessment, virtual learning environments, automated marking, discrimination index, psychometric assessment, formative assessment, summative assessment, student engagement, civil engineering education

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