Nearly 4,000 students took the ACT test on a computer this past spring, marking the first time that a national college entrance exam was administered without a pencil and paper.
The number of students taking the electronic version of the ACT is expected to grow dramatically this academic year, as ACT officially rolls out its new online exam in more school districts nationally.
“ACT is really committed to an approach of continuous improvement,” said Paul Weeks, the nonprofit company’s vice president of client relations. “We’re always trying to think of what are the user needs out there, what is the market demand, and what are ways we can better measure student skills to give them information that helps them. What we’ve learned is, number one, there’s great promise in computer-based testing.”
ACT field-tested the new exam April 12, a national testing date, to an invited group of juniors from 80 high schools across 23 states. The content of the exam was the same as the bubble-sheet version, and the results — using the ACT’s traditional 1 to 36 scoring — were considered official and could be reported to colleges.
Next spring, Weeks estimates that between 50,000 and 100,000 more students will take the computerized test, which ACT will make available to schools that administer the exam to all students on a school day as part of their districtwide or statewide assessment program. For the time being, the national testing days that ACT hosts on six Saturdays will continue to use the pen-and-paper test.
Students will take the electronic version of the ACT on desktop computers, laptops and tablets, though the paper test will continue to be offered in schools that do not have the capability to administer the digital version.
“We field test very carefully to make sure any new test other than paper and a pencil will be fair and would be workable in a digital format,” ACT CEO Jon Whitmore told the Press-Citizen in August. “So the technology advances our team is moving forward with is something we have to be proud of.”
ACT, which surpassed rival SAT in market share for the first time in 2012, is the first of the two companies to begin administering digital college entrance exams. In total, 1.84 million members of the graduating class of 2014 took the ACT, including 22,931 in Iowa.
ACT’s measured roll-out of the digital effort is to ensure that the tests are fair, the results are comparable no matter which version a student takes, that the timing is comparable and that the administration model works, Weeks said.
“We’re taking a very thoughtful approach to it because an awful lot of people count on the results of the ACT for its validity, its reporting and they count on that one to 36 score scale,” Weeks said. “So as we make changes to the ACT, we always do so very thoughtfully and gradually because folks count on that for their research and decision-making purposes. But we do realize there are emerging market demands, and we want to make sure we meet them.”
Challenges in moving to computer-based testing include ensuring facilities have an adequate number of devices to administer the tests, ensuring that web browsers are locked down to ensure that students can’t find answers elsewhere on the Internet and retraining test administrators.
“We want to meet young people in the world where they already live,” said Jon Erickson, president of education and career solutions at ACT, in a news release this spring. “We are working to continuously improve the ACT, and we’ll have more innovations to announce in the months ahead. The exam, of course, will remain a curriculum-based achievement exam that measures what students learn in school, as it has always been.”
Although the electronic test has the same content as the paper test, Weeks said technology could offer a more engaging experience in the future. Rather than the traditional format of providing information to students, then asking questions, test takers could be asked, for instance, to conduct virtual science experiments, pouring liquid from one beaker to another on their screens to solve problems.
“That’s the promise of technology, and that’s the promise of online testing,” Weeks said.
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