Test Scoring FAQ

When you submit a test for scoring, you can access all available reports electronically. From the email notification after the test has been scored, click on the link to access the Dispatch Share. Depending on how you access this email, you may need to copy and paste the link.

The Test Scoring form provides checkboxes to have reports printed. Do not check these boxes, unless there is an absolute need to print the reports.

When you receive the email message that provides you with the report location, the link will be in the third line of the message. You can either click on this link, or copy and paste it into the address bar of your web browser.

If you are on campus, a list of the report files (.pdf files) and results file (.xls file) should display when the link opens in the browser.

If you are off campus, you must make a connection to the IUP Virtual Private Network (VPN) before accessing the files. See Virtual Private Network (VPN) for instructions on setting up the VPN connection. If you are connected to the VPN, you will be prompted for your username and password. You will likely have to select the option to use another account. For username, enter iupmsd\username, and for the password, enter your network password.

The next question also addresses an issue that may occur with Adobe Reader when trying to open the reports.

The reports are in portable document format, or PDF, and require Adobe Reader (or Adobe Acrobat) to view them. Sometimes updates to Adobe products require that you accept the new license agreement the first time you run the program after the update. The dialog box for the license agreement may be in the background. To resolve this, open Adobe Reader (or Adobe Acrobat) from the Start Menu. If the license agreement dialog box appears, accept the license agreement. Then try to open the report again.

Multiple answer keys are needed only when you are scoring an exam with multiple versions that you would like scored as one exam. Each version of the exam must have its own answer key.

Formula scoring is also called penalty scoring, and it penalizes students for guessing. If a student marks an incorrect response, a deduction is made from their overall score. If the student does not respond to a question, no points are added or deducted. If the student answers correctly, one point is added to his score.

A sub-test allows you to evaluate learning objectives on an exam. For example, questions 1 through 10 on your exam deal with mammals, 11-20 deal with reptiles, and 21-40 deal with amphibians. You can use sub-tests to obtain a score for each learning objective for each student. These scores are only available on the Student Statistics Report. On the individual Student Grade Report, only a total score is provided. They are not included in the results file.

The item analysis reports provide response information about each individual question to evaluate the difficulty of the question. For example, 201 Detailed Item Analysis shows frequencies and percentages for each response, while 204 Condensed Item Analysis uses color-coded bar graphs to show correct and incorrect answers, as well as incorrect responses that were selected more than the correct response. These reports help to identify questions or topics that may have been more difficult for the students.

Yes, you can include one or more bonus questions on an exam with multiple versions, with these limitations:

1. The bonus question(s) must be the same question(s) on each version of the exam. For example, if the exam has 52 questions with two bonus questions, the bonus questions should be 51 and 52 on each version of the exam.
2. The point value for all questions on the exam must be the same. In other words, all questions, including the bonus questions, could be worth two points. On an exam with 52 questions, where two of those are bonus questions, if each question is worth two points, a student with 52 correct responses could get 104 points out of 100.

No. At least one question on the exam must be scored. This is because percentages are based on the number correct divided by the number of possible points. If all questions are bonus questions, the number of possible points is zero, and you can't divide by zero.

This is by design. This prevents you from accidentally deleting or modifying the exam data. If you wish to update the results file, you will need to copy it to a secure location where you have write access, and then make the desired changes.

The exam results folder is organized by term, and it will be purged by term as well, on a cycle similar to the project directory. When fall 2022 is about to begin, the Fall 2021 folder will be deleted. When the spring 2023 term is about to begin, the Spring 2022 folder will be deleted. This cycle will allow you to backup files from past semesters even after the grade appeal deadline for a given semester.

The test scoring system uses point biserial and p value statistics to determine question reliability. The point biserial value is shown on Report 207 - Test Item Statistics Report, and it indicates if a question was a good discriminator between the students who did well on the test and the students who did poorly on the test.

Point biserial ranges from -1 to 1. A positive value indicates that the students who did well on the test answered the question correctly (that is desired). .2 is considered a good value.