In September last year, the second year of this project started. The project aims to develop an Online Adaptive Progress Test. The focus in the first year was on establishing an item bank with all international test items. Guidelines on item writing and reviewing has been developed and all teachers were extensively trained at each institution to create and review high-quality items. The project group implemented software to support item creation and reviewing, and for the administration of the online test with students. Developing and reviewing items is currently still on going. The first pilot has yet been administrated in all partner institutions. Three additional pilots will follow during the project duration. After each pilot the partner institutions will evaluate with their students the value of this test and if the results are what they expected and wether they are meaningful for their learning process.
The interim report submitted to the European Union has been accepted, therefore the progress so far is sufficient and the project has an impact already in all partner institutions. With the support of this project. the teachers are more aware of the benefits of this testing method and the usage in an international context. Moreover, their skills in item writing and reviewing has been improved. Although, item writing was highly demanding for each partner institution it was impossible to develop such an high amount of items (currently around 1300) without this grant. During the AMEE conference in Glasgow (UK) we hope to present our lessons learned.
The next 1,5 year, the project team will dedicate time to the sustainability of this project. By developing a proper business- and sustainbility plan we hope that by the end of this project more institutions will have an interest to become part of this consortium.
