Assessment
After registration, the new student is led through an interactive
tutorial teaching him or her how to use the system.
Once the student is familiar with ALEKS and its tools, the student takes a personalized interactive assessment that precisely identifies the student's knowledge state for a given subject. The student will be presented with 20-30 questions representing the subject matter in the course. As the student solves each problem, ALEKS gains a greater understanding of what the student knows and doesn't know.
Following the initial assessment, the student receives her report in a
color-keyed pie chart. In the "pie," each "slice"
corresponds to a particular area of the syllabus, such as "decimal numbers" or
"proportions and percents". The degree to which the slice is filled by a darker
color shows the extent to which the student has mastered that area. The
report describes the student's current knowledge of the subject and makes
precise recommendations for further study. Each slice of the "pie" may be
opened to produce a list of the concepts on which the student can choose to
work. Key Features of the ALEKS Assessment Some key features of the assessment are:
- Assessment questions are adaptive and precisely identify the student's knowledge from a comprehensive standard curriculum.
- Unlike a conventional "test," the ALEKS assessment does not give the student a "grade" or "raw score." Instead, ALEKS finds out which concepts the student has mastered and what the student is ready to learn.
- All problems require that the student produce authentic mathematical input. ALEKS avoids multiple-choice questions.
- No time limits are imposed on the student during the assessment (although an instructor can choose to schedule an assessment to be taken at a specific time).
The Assessment and Standards
Assessment results are always framed relative to a comprehensive standard. For K-12 users, the system allows teachers and administrators to customize the standards used by their classes with an easy-to-use standards editor, which is part of the instructor module. ALEKS Customer Support is also available to assist with customization.
For higher education users, the system allows instructors and administrators to customize the standards used by their courses with an easy-to-use syllabus editor, which is part of the instructor module. Both the Assessment and Learning Modules are automatically adapted to the chosen standards. ALEKS Customer Support is also available to assist with customization.
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