Tecat Enterprises designs evaluation tests and exams that measure the level of person's understanding of a particular concept(s) or topic(s). We design these evaluation tests to virtually any subject matter in the areas of science and technology. These tests provide more accurate picture of the level of understanding and potential problem areas compared to many other tests on the market.
Introduction:
Academic learning involves more than ability to memorize facts, to follow procedures,
and to solve problems. Particularly in science courses, it is often very important
to be able to understand what is being taught. Without understanding, the very
vital part of learning is not realized.
Typical school exams seldom test students' true understanding of concepts but
rather the emphasis is placed on memorization. Therefore, it is possible a student
to receive a high mark on an exam without having understood many of the very
basic fundamental topics.
Students in many public school systems do not perform well in standardized achievement
tests compared to students in private schools. Common reasons that are reported
are lack of funding, shortage of qualified and competent teachers, lack of discipline,
and lack of motivation. In other words, private schools have generally more
resources to improve the learning environment and to hire accomplished teachers.
There are other ways the public school systems and any other school system can
increase students' academic learning without spending large amount of money.
The best way to improve learning is to find out exactly what students understand
and what they do not. This can be accomplished by using student evaluation tests
where the emphasis is placed on testing students' understanding of concepts.
There is nothing wrong for including other aspects such as problem solving a
long as the precise problem areas can also be recognized.
Often understanding or "getting it" hinges on minor details that educators
can easily overlook. This can be as small as a single word that prevents a student
from 
understanding
a concept. How many science teachers at high school level and above have a clear
idea what their students have actually understood after each lecture or at the
end of a complete course? If a teacher have never tested his students' level
of understanding of a particular topic or concept, how would he/she know? Imagine,
if a teacher had precise information on what students have actually understood
and what they have not, a common logic would dictate that he/she would make
modifications to his teaching methods in order to rectify the problem areas.
It can be safely assumed that once student's understanding increases, the learning
becomes more interesting and thus increasing his/hers level of motivation to
learn.
Not only should school systems develop these types of evaluation tests to measure
students' level of understanding of concepts but also they should test teachers
to identify those whose knowledge and understanding do not meet the established
requirements. How would you define a good teacher? You can most likely come
up a list of traits and qualities that we all can agree. One of those items
has to be a reasonable knowledge and understanding of the discipline he/she
teaches. If a teacher does not comprehend the material he/she is teaching, in
all likelihood, his students will not "get it" either. Schools should
make sure that their teachers have passed a qualifying teacher evaluation test(s)
that measured the level of understanding of the subject(s) they are teaching
and that teachers have also received training on how to use student evaluation
tests and how to effectively evaluate the results.
Evaluation Tests:
We have designed
our evaluation tests to measure the understanding of a particular subject matter(s).
Different formats exist that can be used for testing the level of understanding.
The easiest and most popular format for the administrators is the multiple choice.
These types of tests are easy to mark and provide quick results. However, multiple
choice tests are quite unreliable to pinpoint the exact problem areas. It is
often impossible to ask a specific question about a topic in multiple choice
format without giving away the answer. Anytime, when a person has a reasonable
chance to guess the answer, the reliability of a test suffers.
The best type of tests to measure the comprehension of concepts or topics are designed in such away that most of the guesswork, memorization, and problem solving is eliminated. Our sample Electronics Evaluation Test is a good example of this type of format. Most of the questions in that test require the participant to either explain or show his/hers steps leading to the final answer.
Evaluating the Tests:
If the same format
is being used as in the Electronics
Evaluation Test, the marking or grading of the results can be done different
ways depending on the client's requirements.
Schools and companies can grade the tests as any regular exam/test or if more
detail analysis is required, we recommend the use of our special evaluation
sheets. We tailor these sheets to each individual test. The purpose of these
evaluation sheets is to identify exact problem areas by breaking questions into
individual parts or steps that lead to a final answer. Each step is then evaluated
and assigned a numerical value (typically values between 0 and 3). Since all
steps should carry more or less the same "weight", the average score
of all steps is the number of points one is awarded for that question. That
way awarding partial credit is done fairly and automatically. Clients can also
decide what penalty is assessed to answers that are "impossible"or
not realistic. Once the marking is completed, all the numerical data from all
the participants is placed on data management programs (spread sheets) and the
results can be evaluated by using the features of these programs and other computer
programs. Each individual step can be linked to a corresponding plain English
explanation so that the administrators who may do not have background in the
subject matter can understand the results. We design evaluation sheets to accommodate
many automatic readers such as optical scanners.
Benefits for using Evaluation Tests:
Midterm Exams (or any
other exams that are returned to students):
Generally, marked
and returned (midterm) exams provide students very little use afterwards due
to nature of these exams.
Instructors seldom include exam questions that test students understanding of
the exam material but rather the emphasis is in memorization, problem solving,
and ability to follow steps and procedures.
We design our (midterm)
exams practically the same way as our evaluation tests. Since skills such as
problem solving may be important in some disciplines, on client's request, we
can include any type of questions in exams such as ones requiring problem-solving
skills. Also, when appropriate, we include necessary formulas, graphs, block
diagrams, or any other items that students might need to answer a particular
question.
We do not provide evaluation sheets since instructors should mark these exams
as any regular exams.
We provide answer sheets on request.
Benefits for using our midterm exams:
