Examination Reforms Policy

Dr.Narayana Swamy R
Professor and HOD
Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering, FET-JU

“Research in not about output, Its everything about outcome”

Outline
Introduction

Assessment strategy for Outcome Based Education

Improving Structure & Quality of Assessments

Assessing Higher Order abilities & Professional Skills

Competencies and Performance Indicators (Pis)

Sample questions for Bloom’s Taxonomy levels

Model Question Papers

Sample Scoring Rubrics

Education Reforms Policy
• In the Present Examination System, Memorizing occupies dominant
place.
• Assessment must test
▪ Higher Level Skills Viz. ability to apply knowledge, solve complex
problems, analyse, synthesise and design
▪ Further Professional Skills like ability to communicate, work in teams, life
long learning have become important elements for employability of the
graduates
• It is Mandatory for engineering institutions to Adapt OBE Framework
for their
• Curriculum Design, (Content- What to Teach)
• Delivery and (Knowledge Delivery - How To Teach)
• Assessment. (Student Learning – How to Assess)

• Very Little Attention is being given for connecting examination

questions/Assessment Tools leads to the inaccurate and unreliable
measurement of attainment of outcomes by the students.
Assessment strategy for Outcome
Based Education

Mapping Program
Outcomes to Assessment
(Examinations)

Two-step Process for

bringing clarity to Program
Outcomes (POs)

Program Outcomes -
Competencies –
Performance Indicators
Assessment strategy for Outcome Based Education-
Mapping Program Outcomes to Assessment (Examinations)

Form the Program Outcomes (POs) that reflect skills,

knowledge and abilities of graduates regardless of the
field of study

In outcome-based education, a “design

down” process is employed which moves
from POs to Course Outcomes (COs)

Achievement
of
POs needs
accurate
assessments.
Assessment strategy for Outcome
Based Education

Mapping Program
Outcomes to Assessment
(Examinations)

Two-step Process for

bringing clarity to Program
Outcomes (POs)

Program Outcomes -
Competencies –
Performance Indicators
Assessment strategy for Outcome Based Education-
Two-step Process for bringing clarity to Program Outcomes (POs)

• 1. Identify Competencies to be attained: For each PO define

competencies -different abilities implied by program outcome
statement that would generally require different assessment
measures.

• 2. Define Performance Indicators: For each of the

competencies identified, define Performance Indicators (PIs)
that are explicit statements of expectations of the student
learning.
Assessment strategy for Outcome
Based Education

Mapping Program
Outcomes to Assessment
(Examinations)

Two-step Process for

bringing clarity to Program
Outcomes (POs)

Program Outcomes -
Competencies –
Performance Indicators
 Assessment strategy for Outcome Based Education-
Program Outcomes -Competencies – Performance Indicators
Some Examples of Suggestive list of competencies and PI for Computer Science
Improving Structure & Quality of
Assessments

Bloom’s Taxonomy for

Assessment Design

Verbs for Assessment

Assessment Planning
using Bloom’s Taxonomy
Improving Structure & Quality of Assessments-
Bloom’s Taxonomy for Assessment Design
Improving Structure & Quality of Assessments-
Bloom’s Taxonomy for Assessment Design
Improving Structure & Quality of
Assessments

Bloom’s Taxonomy for

Assessment Design

Verbs for Assessment

Assessment Planning
using Bloom’s Taxonomy
 Improving Structure & Quality of Assessments-
Action Verbs for Assessment
Level Skill Demonstrated Question Ques / Verbs
for tests

• Ability to recall of information like, facts,

list, define, tell,
1. Remember conventions, definitions, jargon, technical de scrib e, recit e, recall,
terms, classifications, categories, and criteria identify, show,
• ab ili t y to recal l me t ho dolo gy and pr o cedu r es, label, tabulate, quote,
abstractions, principles, and theories in the name, who, when,
field where, etc.
• knowledge of dates, events, places
• mastery of subject matter

• un de rst and in g in f or mat io n describe, explain,

2. Un d er st and • gr asp meaning par aphrase, restat e,
associate, contrast,
• t ran slat e kno w le dge in t o new cont ext
sum marize,
• interpret facts, compare, contrast differentiate interpret,
• or de r, group, inf er causes di scuss
• pr edict con seq u ences
Improving Structure & Quality of Assessments-
Action Verbs for Assessment
Improving Structure & Quality of Assessments-
Action Verbs for Assessment
Improving Structure & Quality of
Assessments

Bloom’s Taxonomy for

Assessment Design

Verbs for Assessment

Assessment Planning
using Bloom’s
Taxonomy
Improving Structure & Quality of Assessments-
Assessment Planning using Bloom’s Taxonomy
• While using Bloom’s taxonomy framework in planning and
designing of assessment of student learning, following
points need to be considered:

• Normally the first three learning levels; remembering,

understanding and applying and to some extent fourth level
analysing are assessed in the Continuous Internal
Evaluation (CIE) and semester End Examinations (SEE),
where students are given limited amount of time.

• And last three learning levels abilities; analysis, evaluation

and creation can be assessed in extended course works or in
variety of student works like course projects, mini / minor
projects, internship experience and final year projects.
Improving Structure & Quality of Assessments-
Assessment Planning using Bloom’s Taxonomy
Improving Structure & Quality of Assessments-
Assessment Planning using Bloom’s Taxonomy
• Before adopting this framework for reforms in examination
system of a University/Institution, it is worthwhile to study
the present pattern of assessment in each of the course in
the program to gain insight about:

a) Alignment of assessment questions with course learning

outcomes
b) Whether all the learning outcomes are tested; sometimes
some learning outcomes are over tested at the expense of others
which may be not tested at all.
c) Overall weightage in the assessment, to each of the Bloom’s
learning levels
d) Assessment methods used to adequately assess the content
and desired learning outcomes
Improving Structure & Quality of Assessments-
Assessment Planning using Bloom’s Taxonomy

• Examination paper must consist of various difficulty levels to

accommodate the different capabilities of students.

• Bloom’s taxonomy framework helps the faculty to set

examination papers that are well balanced, testing the different
cognitive skills without a tilt towards a tough or easy paper
perception.

• It is recommended that at institution/ University level, upper

limit need to be arrived for lower order skills (for example,no
more than 40% weightage for knowledge-oriented questions).

• Examples of typical questions for each of the Bloom’s cognitive

level are given in Appendix-B Model question Papers are given in
Appendix- C
Assessing Higher Order abilities &
Professional Skills

Innovative Educational
experiences to teach and
Assess

Using Scoring Rubrics as

Assessment tool

Open-Book Examinations
Assessing Higher Order abilities & Professional Skills
Innovative Educational experiences to teach and Assess

• Following are the few educational experiences that are

recommended to teach and assess professional outcomes and
higher order cognitive abilities:

• Course projects
• Open-ended experiments in laboratories
• Project-based learning modules
• MOOCS
• Co-Curricular experiences
• Mini / Minor projects
• Final year projects
• Internship experiences
• E-portfolios of student works
Assessing Higher Order abilities &
Professional Skills

Innovative Educational
experiences to teach and
Assess

Using Scoring Rubrics as

Assessment tool

Open-Book Examinations
Assessing Higher Order abilities & Professional Skills
Using Scoring Rubrics as Assessment tool

• Rubrics provide a powerful tool for assessment and

grading of student work.

• There are three components within rubrics namely

• (i) criteria / performance Indicator: the aspects of
performance that will be assessed

• (ii) descriptors: characteristics that are associated with each

dimension

• (iii) scale/level of performance: a rating scale that defines

students’ level of mastery within each criterion.
Assessing Higher Order abilities &
Professional Skills

Innovative Educational
experiences to teach and
Assess

Using Scoring Rubrics as

Assessment tool

Open-Book Examinations
Assessing Higher Order abilities & Professional Skills
Open-Book Examinations

• Open book examination allows students to refer to either class

notes, textbooks, or other approved material while answering
questions.
• They are particularly useful if you want to test skills in
application, analysis and evaluation i.e. higher levels of
Bloom’s taxonomy.

• Advantages of open-book examinations

• 1. Less demanding on memory and hence less stressful
• 2. Questions can emphasise more on problem solving, application of
knowledge and higher order thinking
• 3. Assessment questions can reflect real life situations that requires
comprehension, information retrieval and synthesising skills of the
students to solve.
 Assessing Higher Order abilities & Professional Skills
Open-Book Examinations

Designing a good Open Book Examination

Set questions that As the nature of

require students to do questions is complex, it
things with the is to be ensured that the
information available to students get enough
them. time.

The exam give more

weightage to application
of knowledge, critical
thinking and use of
resources for solving
real complex
engineering problems.
 APPENDIX-A-Competencies and
Performance Indicators (PIs)
• Refer Slide number 11 to 13

• (For All PO’s kindly refer below link)

https://www.aicte-india.org/sites/default /files/ ExaminationReforms.pdf
 Sample questions for Bloom’s Taxonomy level
1. Remember

• State Ohm’s law

• List the components of A/D converter
• List the arithmetic operators in increasing order of
precedence.
• Define the purpose of a constructor.
• Define the terms: Sensible heat, Latent heat and Total heat of
evaporation
• Describe the process of galvanisation and tinning
• Write truth table and symbol of AND, OR, NOT, XNOR gates
• What is the difference between declaration and definition of a
variable/function?
• What is the use of local variables?
• What is a pointer on pointer?
 Sample questions for Bloom’s Taxonomy level
2. Understand

• Explain the importance of sustainability in Engineering design

• Explain the terms; Particle, Rigid body and Deformable body
giving two examples for each.
• What is the difference between including the header file with-
in angular braces < > and double quotes “ ”?
• What is the difference between actual and formal
parameters?
• Explain the different ways of passing parameters to the
functions.
• Explain the use of comma operator (,).
• Differentiate between entry and exit controlled loops.
• How is an Array different from Linked List?
 Sample questions for Bloom’s Taxonomy level
3. Apply
1. A single array A[1..MAXSIZE] is used to implement two stacks. The
two stacks grow from opposite ends of the array. Variables top1 and
top2 (topl< top2) point to the location of the topmost element in each
of the stacks. What is the condition for “stack full”, if the space is to be
used efficiently.
2. Consider the following table of arrival time and burst time for three
processes P0, P1 and P2.
Process Arrival time Burst Time
P0 0 ms 9 ms
P1 1 ms 4 ms
P2 2 ms 9 ms
The pre-emptive shortest job first scheduling algorithm is used. Scheduling is
carried out only at arrival or completion of processes. What is the average
waiting time for the three processes?
3. A CPU generates 32-bit virtual addresses. The page size is 4 KB. The
processor has a translation lookaside buffer (TLB) which can hold a
total of 128-page table entries and is 4-way set associative. What is the
minimum size of the TLB tag?
 Sample questions for Bloom’s Taxonomy level
4. Analyze

1. While writing a C code, the problem faced by the programmers is to

find if the parenthesis is balanced or not. Write an algorithm to check
if the parenthesis in C code are balanced.Initially your code should
work for balanced { and } braces.

2. Swapping of the data in a linked list can be performed by swapping

the contents in the linked list. Can the contents of a linked list be
swapped without actually swapping the data?

3. Return statement can only be used to return a single value. Can

multiple values be returned from a function? Justify your answer.

4. Bob wrote a program using functions to find sum of two numbers

whereas Alex wrote the statements to find the sum of two numbers in
the main() function only. Which of the two methods is efficient in
execution and why?
 Sample questions for Bloom’s Taxonomy level
5. Evaluate & 6. Create

• Both higher order cognitive skills ‘Evaluate’ and ‘Create’ are

difficult to assess in time-limited examinations. These need to be
assessed in variety of student works like projects, open ended
problem-solving exercises etc. Typical examples of problem
statements or need statements which need higher order abilities to
solve are given below

1. Design a system to assist the driver by using cameras to detect lane

markers and pedestrians while the vehicle is in motion.

2. A Biotech industry needs automation for filling its product into 20 ltr
bottles. Design a system to meter the flow into the bottles so that each
bottle has 20 ltr of the liquid. There will be more than 37 one filling
station and the system has to monitor all the filling stations as well as
keep count of the total production on a daily basis
References
• https://www.aicte-
india.org/sites/default/files/ExaminationReforms.pdf