The online evaluation system in sciences course for students in remote areas: Enhancing educational opportunities for all students toward Thailand 4.0

Abstract

“Behavior comes from internal characteristics of a person which cannot directly be observed, that is why stimulus is needed.” is the key concept of educational measurement. In Thailand, the education system depends only on the tests and exams to measure the level of knowledge of students in order to promote themselves for the admissions to the higher class or the university. The students in the cities and Bangkok have chances to access the facilities to gain more knowledge, whereas the students in the remote areas can rarely access the educational resources such as teachers, instructors, books, and media. This study aims to develop the online test system for the students in provincial areas to practice before sitting the real exams. The system has been designed based on the computerized adaptive testing concept. The retrieval of the incoming test items are based on the previous answers, therefore the test item is adaptive upon the students who are taking the test. This study has been implemented in four schools (Ban Kao Wittaya School, Dan Ma Kham Tei Wittayakom School, Udomsit Suksa School, and Rom Klao School) in Kanchanaburi province. The highlight of the project is making the students in junior high school have more positive attitudes in tacking the test in Sciences subjects. Comparing to the conventional paper-based multiple choice testing, where all students receive the same test items, normal students would be exhausted and discouraged by the fact that most items are too difficult to be relevant. Meanwhile, smarter students are not appropriately challenged, because most items are too easy for them. The results of this study show that the larger percentage of the test items with appropriate difficulty, together with the better precision and shorter test-lengths.