Best Practices for Remote / In-home Administration for Online Tests

Given the interruption to spring classes and testing calendars, it may be especially useful to obtain up-to-date measures of student progress and growth to drive curriculum planning and student placement. The following points provide an overview of the issues your district will need to consider as you plan for remote/in-home administration of online tests.

1. First consider your purpose(s) for testing and whether your purpose(s) will be well served by remote administration.

•   Achievement tests and progress-monitoring systems can be administered remotely and the results used to inform instructional practice and remediation plans. Ability measures may also be administered when the intent is to inform gaps between student ability and demonstrated achievement or to assess student strengths and weaknesses.
•   Remote testing for high-stakes purposes such as for graduation requirements or identification for accelerated academics must be considered more carefully. You need to consider your ability to monitor students’ testing circumstances to ensure that they are tested in a secure, distraction-free environment so that you can certify their test results.

2.  Limit assessment Form exposure

•   Once tests have been used for in-home/remote testing, Riverside Insights will be unable to ensure that test security has not been breached with your school system or district. In order to minimize test content exposure:
• In-home/remote testing may only be conducted using the Iowa Assessments Form E or Form F, Logramos TERCERA EDICION, and the Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT) Form 7.
• If possible, use the Survey battery of the Iowa Assessments and CogAT

Screening Form 7 to expose less content

• In-home/remote testing may not be conducted using the Iowa Assessments Form G nor using the CogAT Form 8 and CogAT Screening Form 8. These forms are held in reserve to ensure test content security for in-school use.

3. Recommended Mode of Testing – Audio Administration

•   At-home/remote test administration should always be done using audio. Using audio is one way to bring greater standardization to at-home/remote testing administrations.

1. If audio is enabled for the customer’s contract, then audio testing is selected by default when creating a new test event.

•   Do not choose proctor-led test assignments. Proctor led scenarios where the teacher/proctor paces all students through the test item-by-item are best suited for school-based environments.

1. It’s recommended that test sessions be created in advance. This will help ensure that the correct settings are chosen, like audio administration.

•   For audio administrations, students may choose to use headphones or may choose to play audio using speakers. If using speakers, be sure that any conference or other audio is muted.

4. Monitoring Student Testing

•   We strongly recommend use of a video conferencing technology so that testing scenarios at each home can be monitored.
•   You should have your students on camera in your conferencing software to ensure that they are the ones completing the assessment.
•   Some options include:
• WebEx
• Zoom
• GoTo Meeting
• Join Me
• EZ Talks Cloud Meeting
• Skype
• Google Duo
• Google Meet
•   Consider video conferencing in smaller groups of students depending on their age, and on the size of your monitor. You want to be able to ‘see’ each of your students as they are working; hosting a large number of students in your conference at one time can make this challenging.
•   If your students do not have webcams, then careful monitoring of the DataManager proctoring page will provide some guidance. Watch for students that move through an assessment too rapidly, or that pause too long on each item. DataManager proctoring allows you to end an individual student session if you feel there are testing irregularities. Please note that this is not an ideal solution and should be used only in the absence of video-conferencing or other monitoring utilities.

·   Students should not have other browser tabs or windows open during testing. Students should not have access to other devices, including their mobile devices, during testing. Students should not have access to resources that can help them with responding to questions while they are testing. Other distractions such as running televisions, radios, games, and activity of other household members in the same room at the same time should also be avoided.