Professor Program. Grading Scantron Exams

Transcription

1 Grading Scantron Exams Grading scantrons consists of five parts: 1. Mechanically scanning the forms 2. Correcting scanning mistakes in the resulting scantron text file 3. Creating a student roster text file 4. Grading the exam with the scantron file and the roster file using Webtron 5. Saving scores and the exam report Part 1: Scanning the scantron forms 1. The scantron machine is currently located in 2115 NatSci Stack scantrons neatly. It will be helpful if they are sorted by the first one or two digits of the student ID number, but this is not critical. It is NOT necessary to sort by version if the exam and key had a version question. It isn t even necessary to have an answer key scantron. 3. Turn on scanner (two switches in the back). 4. Open ScanBook software on the computer desktop. 5. Select the scantron form type. Click File, Open. Change the Files of type to *.job.

2 6. The scantron form normally used by BioSci is Scantron version f-158. This job is located in folder SBW32 on the C drive. Click through to that folder and choose f-158.job. 7. Once the f-158.job window opens, right click on the F-158.sh file and a Properties window will open. Save the job with a relevant name like BioXMid1A.txt, and change the full path for the output file to save onto the desktop. 8. Load the scantrons into the feeder on the right of the scanner. There s a toggle switch on the front of the scanner that moves the hopper tray backwards and forwards. It s okay if the bin only holds some of the scantron stack. You can add the rest later. 9. To start the scanning and recording of answers, click the red! button in ScanBook. The scanner should pull in the scantrons one by one and read each. 10. The scantron machine will generate a text file of student IDs followed by each student s answer to all questions. This machine does NOT mark the scantron sheets themselves. The Process Log window allows you to watch this file being made. It is simultaneously being saved as the text file you specified on the desktop.

3 11. If the hopper runs out of scantrons, the scanning will automatically pause. Toggle the tray back, add more scantrons, and toggle the tray forward. Scanning should resume on its own. 12. It isn t uncommon for the machine to have difficulty picking up scantrons from the hopper. If the machine gets stuck, it will read paper jam by the toggle switch. Usually moving the tray back, taking out the scantrons and re-stacking them, and replacing the scantrons in the hopper fixes the problem. Sometimes a gentle smack with your right hand to the right side of the stack can help the machine grab the next scantron. 13. After all the scantrons have run, click the red X stop button in Scanbook, or press the green button on the front of the scanning machine. Either one completes the job and closes the scantron text file. or 14. check that the text file on the desktop has all the scanned rows in it by double clicking the file. 15. If you have a second class to run, you can now return to step 7 (above), right click on the job and create a new text file to save to. Scan the new class as before. 16. Congratulations! You ve completed the most mechanically difficult part of running scantrons generating the scantron text files. Now open Explorer and your favorite program and the.txt files to yourself. Delete the files from the desktop of the scantron computer when you are sure you ve received it by Pack up all your scantrons and move to a more comfortable computer location for the rest of the scantron grading.

4 Part 2: Correcting the text file of student IDs and answers 18. The scantron text file will have several blanks or? marks where students bubbled in incorrectly. Sit down at a comfortable computer with the stack of scantron forms to correct the errors in the.txt files. 19. Open the first scantron text file from your using Notepad or TextEdit (NOT Excel or Word). Look through the file for any blanks, mistakes in IDs, or question marks (? ). Look up the corresponding scantrons and make corrections to the file as needed. This is where it is handy to have the scantrons sorted at least slightly by ID number. If the scantron shows a?, check the file. It is usually caused by an incomplete erasure. If it is clear which answer the student intended, give them that answer in place of the?. If a student has bubbled in two answers (or forgotten to bubble anything), leave that spot blank in their row of answers: Blank spots 20. Answer keys can either be created on a new scantron form and run through the scantron machine with the exams, or typed in to the text file afterward. The ID number for the answer key should be (and for a second version, etc.). If multiple versions are used, whichever scantron question indicates the version (usually number 1) should be indicated with a lower-case v. The text file including the answer key should look like this: 21. Once the text file contains the answer keys, and all the scantron mistakes have been corrected, the file can be uploaded to Webtron for grading. But before you do the grading, create a class roster.

5 Part 3: Create a class roster text file 22. Go to Webroster at After logging in, click on the course code for the appropriate lecture. If you are a TA who does not have access to that lecture, you will need to ask the instructor of record to give you access. 23. When the roster is displayed, click on Show Options and Seating. Under Show, choose only Student Name and Student ID. Then choose Display Tabbed Text. 24. Highlight the resulting list of names, copy, and paste into Excel (choose Paste Special, text only). You should have a column each for Student ID and Name. 25. Save this roster as a.txt file.

6 Part 4: Grade the exam online using Webtron software 26. Webtron is a simple software program that lives online. The website is: Scantron text file Roster text file 27. From this website, select your text file of scantron answers, and a text file of your roster. If both of these files are correctly formatted, Webtron will produce a file showing the student IDs and number correct with statistics related to different versions, etc. 28. Does Webtron indicate there was a problem with your file? Try one of these fixes: a. Open the roster text file. Make sure the headers (STUDENT# and NAME) are present and are in all capital letters. b. Open the scantron text file in notepad or another text editor, NOT Word or Excel. Make sure there are no strange characters in the file. Resave. c. If that does not work, copy all the text and paste text only with no formatting into a clean text document and resave.

7 d. Send the file to someone else on a different operating system than you (Mac to Windows or vice versa) and have them make a clean text file from the data. 29. The output from Webtron has several components. But the first task is using it to find the students who bubbled in their ID number incorrectly. Look at the very end of the webtron results to see the list of student IDs of people who took the exam but aren t on the roster. Students should have bubbled Students actually bubbled These people generally ARE in the class, but bubbled in their scantrons incorrectly. Go back to the original scantron.txt file and find these wrong IDs and fix them. You can find the correct IDs among the list of students whom Webtron thinks didn t take the exam. Then re-run webtron. Now, the only people who remain with no test entries are students who actually did not take the exam (student athletes, sick students, etc.) Part 5: Analyze exam results 30. Scroll down the Webtron results until you see the Analysis of Questions For Test Version 1 section. This is the part where you can see how many students got each question correct. Make sure that nothing is bold as this indicates the question has the wrong answer marked as correct, or was so confusing that the less-smart students did better than the smarter students. Q3 Answer key incorrect Discuss any problem questions with faculty and make adjustments. 31. Often it will be decided that a second answer choice in a multiple choice question is also correct. It is an easy matter to add a second correct answer by adding a line to the scantron

8 text file under the appropriate version. This second line will have the same version ID, (like ) but all the answers will be blank except for the one question that now has an additional right answer. Sample: (in the example above, the fifteenth question has 2 right answers: D and A in Version 1, D and A in Version Perhaps it is decided that a question is so flawed it needs to be removed from the exam. You can either: a. Add lines to the key so that any answer (A through E) gets credit, or b. Leave that question in the key blank. This removes the question from scoring, and the total possible correct is reduced by one. (in the example above, the tenth question has been removed.) 33. If you make modifications to the answer key, resave the scantron text file with the new answers, and re-run the Webtron analysis with the updated scantron file. 34. Copy the exam analysis results and send them to the faculty member who wrote the exam, along with the exam key if you have one. Encourage them to notice which questions were very difficult and which were easy. 35. If time permits, send the discussion leaders the top three hardest questions so they can discuss the answers with their sections. 36. Go back to the front page of Webtron, and change the Output choice at the bottom to Just final section and # correct. Click the Process Data button.

9 37. Copy/paste the ID, Name and Score columns from the resulting output: and paste into an empty text file. This can then be opened by Excel and modified as desired. 38. Format as the Excel file as desired, multiply answers correct by points each is worth, and upload scores to the EEE gradebook. 39. The best way to reduce student questions about their scantrons is to Rapid Return the forms back to them. See If you don t use rapid return, then use the part of the output file that shows the student answers as the gradebook file: 41. In Excel, make Student ID the first column, the student score the second column, and the list of answers the third column. Then upload the third column as the Comments for the exam score. Tell the students that the correct responses are capitalized.

10 Garr Updegraff ) created Webtron, so contact him with any major questions or weird errors. This guide was written by Adrienne Williams as part of the HHMI-UCI. Contact for more information.