Large-Scale Assessment During a Pandemic: Results from James Madison University’s Remote Assessment Day

Sarah Alahmadi & Christine E. DeMars   |    Volume 17 Issue 1  |   

The COVID-19 pandemic posed many disruptions to higher education assessment in 2020. At James Madison University (JMU), ensuing modifications to long-standing, university-wide assessment necessitated unproctored remote testing instead of the typically proctored, onsite assessment. Applying such modifications to low-stakes educational assessment raises validity concerns. JMU’s assessment model allowed us to explore the effect of the different test administrations, taking into account pre-existing trends in cohorts’ performance. We compared assessment results on three tests (history, global issues, and scientific reasoning) between the 2020 entering class (tested remotely) and the previous four cohorts (tested in-person). Our results revealed lower test performance and a bimodal distribution of effort scores in students tested remotely in 2020, but only on the more cognitively demanding scientific reasoning test, compared to the less arduous tests, history and global issues. Implications and limitations are discussed.

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