Using micros for test development

Conclusion

Which is the better choice: general item bank software or a word processor program? Your answer is dependent upon your computer skills, the amount of test development work you do, and the nature of investment your school is willing to make for software. Both have their relative strengths and weaknesses. The trade-offs between the two approaches are real, important, and in time will probably favor the item bank software.

At the moment, however, we recommend a good word processing program for most teachers. What can you expect the future to bring? At a minimum, test preparation options will continue to expand and improve. We suggested earlier that the technology is changing rapidly. For example even now you can place a printed copy of test items into an optical character recognition (OCR) scanner (similar to a photocopy machine) and read the items into a digital form which either a word processor or a test generator can use. Instead of having to type your collection of test items before selecting, editing, and printing them, the computer will read them from the paper.

This new scanning technology, unfortunately, requires expensive software, powerful microcomputers, and the scanner itself costs over $1000. In addition, the accuracy of the character recognition is not perfect—especially with less than the ideal printed copy from which to work. It will be years before most of us have ready access to this technology. Even better options will be available, however, don’t wait for the next major breakthrough. There will always be another breakthrough on the horizon. You can start improving your test development process now