Digital exams in engineering education

Abstract

Digital exams are rather uncommon in engineering education because general e-assessment platforms lack the ability to use advanced item types that mimic general engineering problem-solving processes and award partial scores. However, it is possible to develop such advanced items with Maple T.A. We describe how such items are structured in scenarios and developed for a second year bachelor’s-level material science course that ran three times at the Delft University of Technology. We evaluate how these items function in practice, are scored and perform from an educational measurement perspective. The paper discusses the results of the study and future directions for development of digital exams in engineering courses.