GB2242557A

GB2242557A - Multiple choice question and answer apparatus

Info

Publication number: GB2242557A
Application number: GB9104540A
Authority: GB
Inventors: William Patrick Gallagher
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 1990-03-05
Filing date: 1991-03-04
Publication date: 1991-10-02
Also published as: GB9104540D0; GB9004885D0

Abstract

An assessment facility for monitoring pupils' progress, comprises a computer and a display unit. The computer is programmed to cause the display of a series of multiple choice questions and each user of the facility is provided with an answering unit, each includes a number of pushbuttons which can be pressed in dependence on the selected answer, and the answers which are given are recorded and analysed. The answering unit can be a radio transmitter and thus a radio receiver is included in the facility for receiving signals corresponding to the selected answers. <IMAGE>

Description

ASSESSMENT FACILITY Field of the Invention This invention relates to an assessment facility.

The introduction of the national curriculum into British schools heralds the biggest ever change in the country's educational system. Along with its introduction comes one of the biggest head-aches for teachers, i.e. the requirement for continuous assessment of the pupils.

It is accordingly an object of the present invention to provide an assessment facility which can be used for the above purpose. A more general object of the invention is the provision of an assessment facility which can be used for a variety of purposes and is not limited to schools applications.

Summary of the Invention According to the present invention there is provided an assessment facility comprising a computer linked to a display unit and programmed to cause the display unit to display a series of multiple choice questions, answering units operatively associated with the computer and operable by the persons being assessed to generate answers to the questions and means for analysing and recording the answers given by said persons.

The computer is preferably programmed to analyse and record not only the answers given by said persons but also their rate of response to the questions and, if required, to provide an indication as to the first person to provide a correct answer to each question.

The computer may be linked to a printer so as to provide a print-out of all the answers given by the persons being assessed and/or an analysis in any appropriate form of said answers.

For example, as applied to use in a school, each answering unit is preferably identified with a given pupil and the programme may be such as to maintain a continuous record of the results of each assessment that has been carried out and to provide such statistics concerning the assessments as the teacher may require.

Each answering unit may comprise a handset having a plurality of operable elements, one associated with each of the answers to a multiple choice question displayed by the display unit.

Each handset may include a radio transmitter having an individual crystal controlled oscillator so as to enable the user to transmit a signal at a set frequency which is determined by the type of crystal. For use in a class of, for example, thirty pupils, there will be thirty handsets, each including a crystal, with the thirty crystals each working at a different frequency.

Brief Description of the Drawings Figure 1 is a diagrammatic system overview, the system including a receive section and a plurality of transmit sections, Figure 2 is a circuit diagram showing the components of the FM transmitter, Figure 3 is a circuit diagram showing the components of the FM receiver, Figure 4 is a circuit diagram showing the components of a pulse position modulated transmitter, Figure 5 is a circuit diagram showing the components of a pulse position modulated receiver, and Figure 6 is a circuit diagram showing the circuit components of a multiplexer.

Description of the Preferred Embodiment As shown in Figure 1, the basic system consists of a control box 10, a number of handsets 11, a computer 12, one or more monitors or display units 13 and a printer 14.

The system illustrated includes up to thirty handsets 11 each of which is basically a 35 MHz transmitter 15 which has an individual crystal controlled oscillator. The detailed circuitry of one of the transmitters 15 is shown in Figure 2 and is such as to enable a user to transmit a signal at a set frquency which is determined by the type of crystal which is employed. If there are thirty handsets 11, there will be thirty crystals each working at a different frequency.

Each handset 11 also includes a pushbutton panel 16 having four pushbuttons A, B, C and D with the arrangement such that, when one of the buttons A, B, C and D is pressed, a pulse position modulated signal is generated by a coder 17 and is used to modulate the radio signal (35 MHz) generated by the transmitter 15. The detailed circuitry of the coder 17 is shown in Figure 4.

The modulated signal from the transmitter 15 is received by an F.M. receiver 18 within the control box 10 which passes this signal to a decoder 19. The detailed circuitry of the receiver 18 is shown in Figure 3 and that of the decoder 19 is shown in Figure 5. The decoder 19 sends a 3-bit signal to the user port of the computer 12, which may be a BBC computer.

A 5-bit control line 20 outputs from the user port of the computer 12 and is connected to a multiplexer 21. The circuitry of the multiplexer 21 is shown in Figure 6 and includes two multiplexer integrated circuits 22 and 23. The purpose of the multiplexer 21 is to change the crystal of the FM receiver 18 so that the receiver 18 can select any one of the thirty frequencies associated with the individual handsets and pass on the appropriate information to the computer 12 for storage.

The computer 12 can thus interrogate all of the thirty transmitters 15 sequentially in a few milliseconds. The computer 12 will continue to generate questions and multichoice answers in the manner described below in detail until the end of an examination and will then provide an analysis of the responses.

The system operates generally as follows: a) Each student is given a handset 11 and should sit in a position which affords a view of the monitor 13. If, necessary, and depending on the size of the class, two or more monitors may be provided. Alternatively, a large screen liquid crystal display may be provided.

b) The computer 12 generates a multiple-choice question which is displayed on the monitor and provides four possible answers marked A), B), C) and D). Each handset 11 has four buttons labelled A, B, C and D.

c) Each student decides which answer he thinks is correct and presses the appropriate button A, B, C or D in response to the question.

d) The computer is continuously interrogating the response of each student to the question and, when a student has answered a question, a signal may be displayed at the bottom of the screen of the monitor 13 to indicate that the computer 12 has accepted his answer.

e) A predetermined time is allowed for each question and a countdown display, in seconds, is provided at the bottom of the screen. If all the students respond to the question in less than the time allowed, the next question will be displayed and the countdown will begin again. If any student fails to respond to a given question within the time limit, he does not score in respect of that question.

f) Further questions will continue to be generated and displayed on the monitor until the last question has been answered. The monitor then displays the options available in the "Main Menu" as described below.

A "Main Menu", which is displayed on the screen when the programme is loaded, includes seven options as follows: 1) The first option, "TEST CONTROLLERS", allows all the handsets currently being used in the system to be tested.

2) The second option, "ASK QUESTIONS", starts the sequence of multi-choice questions on the screen and initiates the count-down timer which displays in seconds. The questions in the test to be carried out will have previously been saved on a floppy disc and will have been produced simply by typing in the questions on the keyboard of the computer 12 and pressing the "save" button. This simple method of creating a test file obviates the need for the user to have any knowledge of programming. Any number of questions can be included in a file. There could, for example, be several hundred.

In addition to providing the questions and the alternative answers, it is also necessary to indicate which of the answers is correct, i.e. A), B), C) or D).

Depending on the length of each test, it may be possible to save up to forty test files on a single floppy disc.

3) The third option is "CLASS LIST". This option allows the user to create, add to or subtract from the list of students in the class. Once a list of students names has been entered, it is not necessary to retype the names of that class each time that a test is taken. what is necessary, however, is that each student should use the same handset for each test that he takes.

4) The fourth option is "STATISTICS". This provides the user with a range of data which may be as follows: DATA SCREEN A: The class list is displayed showing the students in order of merit and giving: a) the percentage of correct answers, b) the number of correct answers, and c) the average time taken for each individual student to respond to the questions.

DATA SCREEN B: The first question and the first set of multiple choice answers appear on the screen together with the percentage of students who have selected each answer to that particular question. A bar chart beside each button choice can also display the same data. The correct answer can be arranged to "flash" on the screen so that, by seeing the question and the correct answer together, the learning process is thereby enhanced. The average time taken by those students who gave the correct answer can also be displayed.

DATA SCREEN C: The list of question numbers appears on the screen together with a small bar chart alongside each question showing the number of correct answers for each of the questions. This data provides immediate analysis of the success or otherwise of each question.

DATA SCREEN D: This display shows the frequency of button choices for the whole test in the form of: a) a bar chart, and b) percentages of the number of times that each choice, i.e.

A), B), C) or D) is made.

DATA SCREEN E: This option provides a bar chart showing the maximum number of correct answers for each student.

A printout of the display of each of these data screens can be provided if required.

The system described above greatly reduces the length of time required for the assessment of pupils. It also reduces the amount of paper that is required. One disc can store up to forty tests of twenty questions each so that, with an average class of twenty five pupils, this is equivalent to 1000 sheets of paper.

At the end of a typical traditional lesson, a teacher might ask one or two students some questions to determine whether they have understood the lesson. However, with a class equipped with the facility described above, all the students are asked the questions and all the answers are monitored.

Although the invention has been described above in detail in relation to its use in the classroom, it will be appreciated that many other uses are possible, for example, in seminars and in conducting surveys.

Claims

Claims:

1. An assessment facility comprising a computer linked to a display unit and programmed to cause the display unit to display a series of multiple choice questions, answering units operatively associated with the computer and operable by the persons being assessed to generate answers to the questions and means for analysing and recording the answers given by said persons.

2. An assessment facility according to Claim 1, in which the computer is programmed to record not only the answers which are given by said persons, but also their rate of response to the questions.

3. An assessment facility according to Claim 2, in which the computer is programmed to provide an indication as to the first person to provide a correct answer to each question.

4. An assessment facility according to Claim 1, in which the computer is linked to a printer so as to provide a printout of all the answers given by the persons being assessed and/or an analysis of said answers.

5. An assessment facility according to Claim 1 and for use in a classroom, in which each answering unit is identified with a given pupil and in which the computer is programmed so as to maintain a continuous record of the results of each assessment.

6. An assessment facility according to Claim 1, in which each answering unit comprises a handset having a plurality of operable elements, one associated with each of the answers to a multiple choice question displayed by the display unit.

7. An assessment facility according to Claim 1, in which each answering unit includes a radio transmitter having a crystal controlled oscillator.

8. An assessment facility according to Claim 7, in which each answering unit includes a plurality of pushbuttons, with the arrangement such that, when one of the pushbuttons is pressed, a pulse position modulated signal is generated by a coder and is used to modulate the signal generated by the transmitter.

9. An assessment facility according to Claim 8, in which a radio receiver is connected to the computer via a multiplexer.

10. An assessment facility constructed and arranged to operate substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to and as shown in Figure 1 of the accompanying drawings.

11. An assessment facility according to Claim 10, the components of which have operating circuits substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to and as shown in Figures 2 to 5 of the accompanying drawings.

12. An assessment facility which includes means for generating and displaying a series of multiple choice questions, a plurality of radio transmitter units each of which has a plurality of operating elements, one associated with each of the answers to said questions, a radio receiver for receiving signals corresponding to the selected answers and means for storing and analysing the received signals.