Abstract
Recently, research has become increasingly inter-ested in developing tools that are able to automatically create test items out of text-based learning contents. Such tools might not only support instructors in creating tests or exams but also learners in self-assessing their learning progress. This paper presents an enhanced automatic question-creation tool (EAQC) that has been recently developed. EAQC extracts the most important key phrases (concepts) out of a textual learning content and automatically creates test items based on these concepts. Moreover, this paper discusses two studies for the evaluation of EAQC application in real learning settings. The first study showed that concepts extracted by the EAQC often but not always reflect the concepts extracted by learners. Learners typically extracted fewer concepts than the EAQC and there was a great inter-individual variation between learners with regard to which concepts they experienced as relevant. Accordingly, the second study investigated whether the functionality of the EAQC can be improved in a way that valid test items are created if the tool was fed with concepts provided by learners. The results showed that the quality of semi-automated creation of test items were satisfactory. Moreover, this depicts the EAQC flexibility in adapting its workflow to the individual needs of the learners.
Highlights
The ability of learners to self-regulate their learning process is a key competence in life-long learning
Results show that the overall quality of the test items semi-automatically created by enhanced automated question creator (EAQC) was comparable to manually created items by humans
4) Results and Findings: First, the concepts that were extracted by the participants were analyzed and compared with the concepts extracted by the participants in Study 1 and the concepts extracted by EAQC
Summary
The ability of learners to self-regulate their learning process is a key competence in life-long learning. It helps them to increase their involvement in the learning process [1]. Learners often face problems if they have to generate questions on their own. In [4] medical students had to generate questions in order to enhance their metacognition strategies such as selfregulation and problem-solving. The results showed that some of the students had difficulties to create high-order questions (i.e., questions that ask for synthesis and evaluation of the information rather than for simple recall). Even if the students had the opportunity to enhance their poorly formulated questions, they needed appropriate guidance to do so. It might be necessary to train learners in strategies and procedures of self-questioning to increase their competence in question generation [2]
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