Background

Test administrators are referred to as "t.admins“.  Instructors, trainers and teachers are grouped together as "instructor-level users" or "t.authors".  Anyone taking tests: employees, pre-hires, trainees, students or customers are "t.takers".  Question banks are "qbanks" and questions, "items".  

 

This guide is intended for t.admins and instructor-level users who have... 

• Participated in one or more online training sessions...
• An intermediate to advanced knowledge of Test Generator and TG Reports... 
• Created, edited and published tests...
• Reviewed "A Guide to Better Test Making".

 

Best Practices 

•  We don't recommend enrolling any instructor-level user in a course without training.  Mistakenly modifying a published test, that contains test scores, could result in data corruption.  See "Changes Allowed" and "Changes NOT Allowed" below for more details.  If you are not certain how to proceed, please contact us before attempting any changes. 
  
  

About Rescore Test

Rescore Test enables a t.author to "disallow" a bad test item.  In a typical scenario the t.author publishes a test which is taken and contains test scores. After analyzing the test results, the t.author realizes that the test contains a "bad" item, we'll call it bi-1.

The t.author mistakenly marked "A" as the correct answer instead of "D".  They want to continue giving the test, so they log in to TG, open the test, locate bi-1, change its point value to "0", save the change and then select Tools > Rescore Test.

Scores recorded prior to re-scoring, would be re-calculated, removing  bi-1 from the total test score calculation: bi-1 would remain in the test but no t.taker would receive credit for it.  This would also apply to any future test attempts.

 

Question Bank: Add a Note

Best Practice: Assuming bi-1 had been imported from a q.bank, we recommend locating the item in the q.bank and making a journal entry under  bi-1's Notes field.  The t.author could also "flag" the item by adding "Do not use." in front of the question stem.  Important,  bi-1 should NOT be resynced.

The t.author could also make a copy of bi-1 by highlighting it in the q.bank's summary table, and then selecting the icon toolbar's Copy and Paste buttons, or select the text menu Test Settings > Clone Question.

Note: the copy of bi-1 would receive a unique Q_ID.  This Q_ID would be different than bi-1's Q_ID and could not be resynced into any test that contained the original bi-1. However, the new, corrected item could be imported into a any new test, that did not contain any scores. 

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Options

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IF  the t.author didn't want to keep any of the test scores, they could delete them from the test's Scores tab, then edit and correct b1-1, in the test and the question bank.  This is an acceptable practice when a t.author is in the process of creating a new test, enrolling peer evaluators and having them take the test.  Best practice: we recommend doing this in a Sandbox course that is only accessible to the t.author's (enrolled) peer evaluators.

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IF the t.author has created a practice test, and has no intention of keeping the test scores, they could freely edit the test, making whatever changes they wanted without having a negative impact on reporting and analysis.  If bad items were discovered, and the t.author wanted to achieve a good practice test, we would recommend deleting the bad item from the test, correcting it in the question bank, and then re-importing it into the test.

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IF the t.author creates a test by manually typing in questions or importing then from a TG-friendly file, and....

• Does not plan on importing or associating items with a question bank
• Is not keeping any test scores
• Wants to freely edit and modify the test items and
• Does not plan on analyzing the test results..
• Is familiar with best practices and the consequences of taking this approach.
  
  

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Changes: Allowed

• Spelling, syntax or grammatical errors in the question stem, answers or question feedback text.
• Changes in policies and procedures that result in changes to the question stem, test introduction of individual question instructions.
• Regulatory changes requiring changes to the question reference field, custom fields, or journal entries in a question’s Notes field.
• Text formatting changes

Changes: NOT Allowed

• Changing an incorrectly marked answer from, for example, “B” to "D"
• Changing item point values
• Changing incorrect feedback
• Changing randomized answer settings
• Enabling or disabling partial scoring
• Enabling or disabling the Allow Partial Credit – Individually Scored setting
• Adding or removing an Incorrect Points value
• Changing Media or the media link
  
  

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Test Generator does not prevent the t.author from making these changes; however, once made there is no Undo option. 
Applying any of the "NOT Allowed" settings to q.bank items--and then re-syncing them--will lead to corrupted test data.  This applies to any test that...

• Contains test data (scores) and
• One or more re-synced questions and
• Remains active and available to your t.takers

The t.author would end up with two sets of data that do not match.

Set_1 consisting of test data before the resync change, and

Set_2 consisting of test data after the resync change

Does this matter?  Yes, it matters if your organization is...

• Subject to a state, federal or professional licensing audit of your test data.
• Intent on maintain a healthy testing system with accurate data.
• Providing high-stakes testing that influences hiring / firing decisions, promotions or security clearances.
• Dedicated to providing your test-taking audience with a quality testing experience.