Sophisticated tasks in e‐assessment: what are they and what are their benefits?

Abstract

This article asserts the importance of e‐assessment. It further suggests that assessment questions and tasks will change substantially as the art of e‐assessment progresses. The article then exemplifies sophisticated e‐assessment tasks, notes taxonomic schemes that have attempted to classify them and seeks to identify aspects of their definition. Next, some key claims for sophisticated e‐assessment tasks are summarised and evaluated. These claims are: (1) sophisticated e‐assessment tasks can be used to assess novel constructs, and (2) sophisticated e‐assessment tasks can be used to address summative and formative assessment purposes. In the final part of the article, issues arising from the article’s findings are discussed and necessary areas for further research are noted.

Keywords:

• e‐assessment
• sophisticated tasks
• taxonomies and definitions of task types
• benefits of e‐assessment
• higher order learning outcomes
• formative assessment

Notes

1. The counterclaim is that sophisticated tasks resemble teaching and learning materials more closely than conventional test items do. As such, it is should be easier for teachers to write materials for sophisticated e‐assessments (O’Hare, personal communication). This argument requires one to accept that teachers are, or will be in a foreseeable future, skilled developers of multimedia learning materials.