Interactive Graphics for Computer Adaptive Testing

Interactive graphics are commonly used in games and have been shown to be successful in attracting the general audience. Instead of computer games, animations, cartoons, and videos being used only for entertainment, there is now an interest in using interactive graphics for “innovative testing.” Rather than traditional pen-and-paper tests, audio, video and graphics are being conceived as alternative means for more effective testing in the future. In this paper we review some examples of graphics item types for testing. As well, we outline how games can be used to interactively test concepts; discuss designing chemistry item types with interactive 3D graphics; suggest approaches for automatically adjusting difficulty level in interactive graphics based questions; and propose strategies for giving partial marks for incorrect answers. We study how to test different cognitive skills, such as music, using multimedia interfaces; and also evaluate the effectiveness of our model. Methods for estimating difficulty level of a mathematical item type using Item Response Theory (IRT) and a molecule construction item type using Graph Edit Distance are discussed. Evaluation of the graphics item types through extensive testing on some students is described. We also outline the application of using interactive graphics over cell phones. All of the graphics item types used in this paper are developed by members of our research group.