ONLINE PLACEMENT TESTING IN MATHEMATICS AND CHEMISTRY

Online placement examinations in mathematics and chemistry were admini stered to 626 entering freshmen on about 170 networked Macintosh compu ters in 21 different residence hall computer clusters and one public m icrocomputer lab. The testing occurred during orientation days in the fall of 1992 at Stanford University. This application report explains the reasons for doing this testing online, describes the technical bas is of the testing system, presents a statistical analysis of student p erformance, and derives a plan for refining the tests based on data co llected. The trial of online testing succeeded from a practical standp oint, and data analysis generated an empirically based plan for redesi gning the tests. More generally, it showed how testing theory and prac tice fit seamlessly together in a networked environment.