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Central Government, Education IT

Putting government to the test

By Kelly Ng | 5 January 2010

Most government examinations will still stay on paper for the time being, says Michael Yuchuan Lin, Director, Department of Information Management, Ministry of Examination, Taiwan. Kelly Ng finds out why.

Two candidates enter the hall for the same examination. As the examination proceeds, the computer selects the next question from a database based on each examinee’s performance so far. The stronger candidate gets presented with more difficult questions while the other get easier ones. Immediately after, the computer generates equitable scores even though both have experienced a different test set. This technology – called Computer Adaptive Testing (CAT) – a method of administering tests that tailors to the examinee’s ability level, is used by some universities today. Not only does it produce results straight away, it can save up to 50 per cent of the time taken by the tester and tested.

Taiwan’s Ministry of Examinations, which is responsible for testing more than 700,000 civil servants and professionals this year alone, would definitely benefit from implementing CAT. But according to Michael Lin, Director, Department of Information Management, the ministry has several obstacles before that can be done.

CAT is based on item response theory, which enables equitable scores to be calculated across different test sets. “For this to work, you need a big and well-tested question bank which will not only take us time to develop. It will require a change of policy. At the moment, the ministry publishes all questions after the examination,” explains Lin.

True enough, the use of CAT has not been widely accepted globally. As an early adopter of this new technology, the ministry will be challenged on accuracy and credibility. “Government office positions are highly competitive in Taiwan. It is likely my ministry will have difficulty getting approval to run CAT on all civil service examinations. We might start by introducing it to the professional tests we run for doctors and dentists,” he adds.

Fortunately, the ministry’s medium term plan to digitise examinations looks less daunting. Currently, six out of 25 tests held each year have been converted from paper to Computer Based Testing (CBT). Unlike CAT, it is simply transferring multiple-choice questions and answers onto a screen, so all examinees receive the same test set. In the next two years, the ministry will increase the number of computer test stations from 2000 to 3500.

As Lin faces up to 2010, he says that multimedia will be added onto the standard CBT multiple-choice tests. “The questions will be enhanced into what we call situation judgment testing. For example, a police candidate will be shown a real-life video depicting a policeman who has just stopped a driver on the road. The policeman then discovers the driver is intoxicated and so on,” describes Lin. “The test questions will then be based on the video.”

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