Comparing Online and Traditional Assessment Practices in Middle School Mathematics

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers across the world have been forced to explore different modalities of assessment, many of them virtual. Now that many of the most restricting policies for schools due to pandemic have been lifted, the use of these virtual assessments remain. Due to the recent nature of their use though means that not many studies have looked into the implications of these assessments on students let alone middle school students. This study aims to help fill in some of the gaps in this research. In this study, students will take one of two assessments with the exact same questions. One of the assessments will be paper and pencil, the other will be on Google Form. Students will be randomized into which modality they will complete and then the scores of the two groups will be compared. The goal of this is to determine if taking an assessment virtually provides a roadblock to displaying mastery of learning for the students. After students are done with their assessment, they will then take a short survey asking them how hard they perceived their assessment to be. The results of this study will hopefully tell us two things: whether one assessment is more challenging based on the scores and based off student’s perceptions.