RUNNING HEAD: USA Test Prep: CRITIQUE PAPER

Multimedia Product:
USA Test Prep: Poor Product
Psychology of Instructional Technology
Critique Paper #2

Elizabeth Conley, Department of General Education, ITT Tech.

Elizabeth Conley, Horry County Schools Technology Instructor, Business Education.

Correspondence concerning this report should be addressed to Elizabeth

Conley, 5720 Herring Gull Circle, North Myrtle Beach SC 29582.

Contact: ewconley@g.coastal.edu
USA Test Prep Critique Paper

Overview:

USATestprep, Inc. is an educational software application developed by teachers to

provide online education services for enhanced learning techniques. The
company offers online training services for state developed tests and high
school graduation tests and exams. It provides diagnostic tests, vocabulary
worksheets, lesson plans, and tutorial questions for educators use.
USATestprep student achievement and test gains are some of the features
noted on marketing this educational software to k-12 classroom use at a
subscription price for service. Students working with USATestprep have the
potential to review and practice current classroom material presented. The online test database is
presented as a very easy to use, and fast to learn software but is managed and assimilated by the
instructor who uploads the information. The USATestprep mission is advertised as user friendly
and focused on helping students and teachers reach their goals. The following report will
address some of the negative attributes associated with relying on this software to further
students cognitive learning within a subject area. The factor that students may possibly not even
have access to an online system is never addressed.

Analyze

USATESTprep has already recognized the need for a greater enhancement that includes
group assignments that allow students to STAY TOGETHER in graded work and thus becomes
peer maintained. Students have to use expert skills to find the first set of practice questions to
complete for a 30-member assignment group. They can be completed multiple times but if an
update occurs in between times, your work is then lost and not re-captured. Other updates to
graded work assignments from the educators include the following:
A new completed column to show date completed and elapsed time
Filters needed to view all results, assignments only, or independent practice only
Group assignments can be expanded
Only completed assignments will appear
Due dates appear in pink if the assignment was completed late to be contrasted from other colors
Elementary level students have a slightly different view since the Teacher/Class column was never
implemented for elementary that will be added soon

Computerized testing continues to raise issues that require updating of test security laws
and policies where we continue to fall behind in technology. We process information with
amazing efficiency and often perform better than computers in problem solving and critical
thinking skills so why do we rely on computers to enhance our learning. It is understandable that
policies written for standardized testing administered via paper-and-pencil are no-longer
sufficient. The College Board cites example where the ACT has a highly relevant report in this
regard produced by Michelle Croft (2014): The End of Erasures: Updating Test Security Laws
and Policies for Computerized Testing. In this report, Croft (2014) outlined many concerns,
noting that computerized testing produced by USATESTprep, does not eliminate cheating by
students. These practices just take on different forms when using any computer test. Some of
the other risk involved according to Croft (2014), are when educators log on to tests to view
questions or change student responses, thus the following may occur:

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USA Test Prep Critique Paper

computer hacking
keystroke logging
printing
emailing
taking pictures with other electronic devices such as cell phones and then storing or sharing the
test information outside the test delivery system
There is also a greater risk of students accessing the Internet and other programs using
the multitude of mobile devices available during testing. The question then becomes, how should
the computer workstations be positioned within the classroom so that students cannot see what is
on the monitors of other students? This is time consuming for assessment practices and not
needed for student retention. Using effective test prep strategies with students that foster a far
greater essential study practice according to Kercheval & Newbill, 2002, in order to report the
key effective test preparation strategies is more imporatant. These ideas include the following:
Direct instruction in test-taking skills
Extensive use of practice tests
Instructional practice altered to mirror form and content of the proficiency tests
Intervention strategies to identify students needing help to pass proficiency tests
Intervention/remediation programs offered at variety of times during school day, and before/after school
Intervention specialists hired or teachers reassigned or paid to conduct remediation programs
Students recognized and rewarded for success

Additional research by Douglas Reeves (2004) states, "Even if the state test is dominated by
lower-level thinking skills and questions are posed in a multiple-choice format, the best
preparation for such tests is not mindless testing drills, but extensive student writing,
accompanied by thinking, analysis, and reasoning" (p. 92). Silver, Strong, & Perini (2007) found
that student success on standardized tests, regardless of grade level or content area, hinges on
twelve core skills relating to those ideas. They grouped those skills into four categories in what
are called "Hidden Skills of Academic Literacy," thus, enforcing the idea of grouping in a
learned classroom environment. They expected the students to perform well on state tests,
therefore ensuring educators must teach them how to apply these skills without cutting into
content of the lecture itself. Unfortunately, the skills that follow have been radically under
taught by utilizing such mindless games such as the approach in USATESTprep. Educators are
then unable to accurately benchmark the core content being presented within the classroom.
According to Mayer 2014, for cognitive skills learning to be successful, it is enhanced by the
Worked Example Pricnicple that is presented during classroom instruction. This allows students
to use additional classroom time solving problems which is not an option for USATESTprep.
Further, according to Kercheval & Newbill, 2002, the most important educational study skills
with emphasize on actual literacy of content to master are:

Reading and study skills: collect and organize ideas through note making; make sense of
abstract academic vocabulary; read and interpret visual displays of information;
Reflective skills: construct plans to address questions and tasks; use criteria and
guidelines to evaluate work in progress; control or alter mood and impulsivity;
Thinking skills: draw conclusions, make and test inferences, hypotheses, and conjectures;
conduct comparisons using specific criteria; analyze the demands of a variety of higher-
order thinking questions;

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Communication skills: write clear, well-informed, coherent explanations in all content

areas; write comfortably in the following non-fiction genres: problem/solution, decision
making, argument, comparative; read and write about two or more documents.

Purpose:

The Computer Applications course is designed to teach word processing applications,

document skills, publishing, formatting, printing final copy and an introduction to spreadsheets
along with database applications. Learning the use of technology tools incorporated into the
classroom for middle or high school students to
enhance the student learning is the goal. The Remediation
technologies within a computer applications course Classroom Resource
can enhance students current material presented Administration Benchmarks
and used within their daily plans and assignments. Parental interaction
This particular course utilizes student compatibility Test Preparation
and adaptability in demonstrating online
effectiveness while learning to complete research. None of the goals of becoming proficient
within the state standards for computer apps is approachable using a USATESTprep cite with
these specific customizations as shown in box.

According to Trotter in Education Week (2009), USATESTprep is now part of a growing

movement of educators that are latching on to educational resources that are "open," for others to
use, change, and republish on Web sites that promote sharing. This technique is also utilized
within Horry County schools on google for teachers to share assignments. The open-content
movement is fueled partly by digital-creation tools that make it easy to create a mash-up version
of similar assignments. The result is that the content shared may never have been taught in the
cross-classroom utilization. Educators are advocating this by saying it saves schools money by
spreading the time and expense of developing curricular resources over many contributors.
However, in reality it is creating a lazy environment of educators using others work with no
accountability for what is being taught within their own classroom and loosing the ability of the
instructional control cognitive learning (Mayer, 2014). They do feel it passes on the value that
other teachers can add from the same field, when they adapt works originated by others.

Audience/Grade Level:

Secondary teachers use USATESTprep in educational settings as a tool successfully

during their assignments by Sharing Files and Folders and for classroom participation. The
audience or grade level is specifically determined by educator thus allowing expertise level to be
designed as needed. USATESTprep can give many adaptions in order to allow schools more
ways of differentiating instruction, by adding language translations or shifting grade levels and
audience participation. Creators can also adjust for reading ability, a special geographic or
cultural focus, and other departures from the standard curriculum that allows for a wide variety
of audience target point (Trotter, 2009). Many adaptions of USATESTprep give schools more
ways of differentiating instruction, by adding language translations or shifting grade levels.
Therefore, the inconsistency with the audience is constantly changing in grades k-12.

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Format:

Creators of an individual USATESTprep assignment can also adjust for reading ability, a
special geographic or cultural focus, and other departures from the standard curriculum. This
feature requires interaction with ESOL or other speciality areas lacking the content expertise of
the assigned class. Five other relevant formatting features for the educators within
USATESTprep include:
1. Teacher-Directed Learning Resource: USATestprep is not a passive practice question
machine and is composed of remedial strategies to support individual students and the classroom
as a whole thus giving no individual feedback or ability level per student.
2. Classroom Curriculum: The curriculum companion tool features an interactive tool to
using educational games and tests that provide students with immediate feedback of their
strengths and weaknesses in real time through these games and not a literacy format. More use
of games within higher education is detrimental toward positive study habits.
3. Resources that are engaging based strictly on game formats
4. Subscription required - costly
5. Learning Pathways: Teachers can tailor a Learning Pathway to the needs of their
students, integrating diagnostic assessments, and utilizing classroom support based on peer
grouping. This can lead to embarrassment of individualized learning techniques and time
consuming for the teacher the opposite of what is being promoted.
A relevant feature for the student is that the homepage houses student important
information that that can be displayed in a report style format that includes these tab functions:
Progress to display reports from completed tests.
Assignments to display activities assigned by teachers.
Classes to find and join appropriate classes.
Test Results to filter and view test results.
Practice Results to filter and view results from practice.
Game Results to filter and view game results.
However, this realistic approach that students will
view these reports vs. just engaging with an
interactive fun game to fill complacent time is not
reality. This is valuable time not utilized by
teacher interaction and presentation of material to
be learned. An additional consideration in a
computer lab course of varying degrees of student
abilities is the log on feature. This is additional
information that most students of middle school
age will have to maintain not by memory unless used frequently. The loss of this password or
the needed maintenance for the teacher to log the 100s of passwords for each student is time
consuming.
The disadvantages to this benchmark utilization include:

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For educators utilizing the Information Processing Theory, the two main channels that
students use to process the above information is the auditory and visual channel. Students are
able to process sounds while they use these visual images during USATESTprep once they see it.
However, this is using one of the three main subcomponents of sensory memory alongside of the
working and long-term memory capabilities. By combining these two channels, learning will be
less in depth when eliminating the other subcomponents. Students memory retains longer as a
repetitive re-enforcement of the lesson presented by the teacher. Less overload and limitations
are formed by the use of many visuals or a lot of text if using both channels. Students are then
able to balance between the two enabling them to always relate so they are not confused during
the learning process. They are also able to recall information with greater ease with this
framework of understanding established during the classroom interaction (Schraw, 2013).

Re-Design Possibilities:

USATEST Prep assignment settings are in constant need of continued improvement.

Previously, a teacher could edit assignment settings utilizing multiple attempts, minimum score,
and retry missed items at any time, even after students started completing the assignment. The
problem with this is that in reality using USATEST Prep was inundated with bugs and errors that
were constantly having to be altered by teachers in real time after the assignment was issued.
This also made information confusing for the students resulting in the students unable to manage
cognitive load. They would then just give up and complete questions in order to complete the
assignment. This assignment was only being utilized for a redundancy approach of information
allowing extraneous overload to occur with additional overload on working memory capacity.
Students benefit by retention of what was already learned earlier with better confidence and
memorization during positive study habits not games. Or for even greater confusion, what if
the student has only one attempt left and then the settings are changed by the educator as below:

As a result, troubleshooting is made

much more difficult because if the teacher had
changed the settings after the student finished
the assignment this was unable to attain when
this actually happened. USATEST Prep did
not keep track of those changes, so there was
no way to be certain of the settings at the time
when a student completed an assignment.
To view the settings for a specific assignment, click on the assignment
title. The addition to the selected settings section is a needed improvement above.

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USA Test Prep Critique Paper

Another recommendation by Croft (2014) states the need to update the state statutes and
regulations to reflect the shift to computer-administered assessments, concentrate efforts on
controlling test access, and ensure that there is a single test security section within the updated
manual that contains answers for any question that a test administrator has about test security.
District policies should consider how student login information is secured or obtained and who
has access to it. There should be rules on how tests are reactivated if disrupted. A lot of teachers
are not only using the USATESTprep as a reinforcement but also for grading purposes and that is
where these concerns are valid for validating the test results without the ability to track the
disruption within the time frame of the assessment without a re-starting thus giving an unfair
advantage to a possible student..

Summary:

What has changed for Common Core assessments, however, in relation to good
instructional design, is that teachers need to ensure their learners also have the technology skills
to perform well on tests administered online. Per Kristine Gullen (2014), "If we want an online
assessment to capture a student's level of learning, rather than that student's ability to navigate
technology, teachers must integrate these skills into their instruction, giving students practice
before administering high-stakes exams on a computer" (p. 69). Hence, among the best ways to
prepare learners for new assessments is to integrate test preparation into every day classroom
lesson plans using questions linked to the curriculum with problem solving time allowed. To
then use technology for assessments and as an enhanced content learning tool instead of
motivational games for study habits (Miller, 2014). Students are in constant need of practice with
new testing formats, and new types of questions. For example, multiple choice questions might
have more than one answer and USATESTprep wont recognize that. Students need practice
with the ability to enter test responses via the keyboard. Fluid keyboarding skills will help
minimize frustration when answering constructed-response questions. They also need good
"moussing" or "touchscreen" skills to enter or remove responses via click or drag and drop into
particular places on a screen which is accomplished through continued classroom assignments.
Gullen (2014) noted that learners also need skills highlighting text, drawing lines and creating
graphs on a screen, operating an online calculator, and using a scroll bar to be successful. The
need to use a scroll bar might be increased if learners need to increase font size, or another
accommodation feature. Above all, learners need "opportunities to build a level of comfort with
the actual keyboards, screens, eternal mouse or touch pads, and so on that they'll use during the
assessment" (p. 71). Greater classroom explanations to learners about their difficulties and
recommendations will help students build additional skills they need to develop.

Jeff Weinstock (2008) of T.H.E. Journal provided food for thought for
critics of teaching to standardized testing. "When the system works the
way it should, teaching to the test is a misnomer. It's not the test that
teachers are teaching to, but the state learning standards embedded in
the test. Has the student learned this, that, and the other?...Count me
among those who think introducing some accountability into instruction
is an idea whose time has come. I can't suffer another generation of
supermarket cashiers who become disoriented when I hand over $8.07
for a $7.82 bill" (p. 8).
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In education, accuracy and integrity are already the victims of moving off of textbooks.
Educators using open source and website replacements such as USATESTprep are becoming
familiar to many students. It is easy for educators to forget it can be laden with substantial
factual errors based on input. Sadly, a much larger amount of online open-access wisdom-of-the-
group web material substitutes convenience for accuracy. Textbooks are not error free, but they
generally get considerably more expert proofing than websites or software apps. Intellectual
structure of knowledge laid out in a text is a very important component of teaching and
repurposing of online resources is hardly comparable with classroom engagement. Actual
research plays on the surface of the real and enforces the learning of computer components. In
other words, good instruction is the best test preparation!

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Rfrences

Driscoll, M. (2005) Psychology of Learning for Instruction (3rd ed.) (pp 91-110). Boston, MA :

Allyn and Bacon.

Gullen, K. (2014). Are Our kids Ready for Computerized tests? Educational Leadership, 71(6),

68-71.

Kercheval, A., & Newbill, S. A Case Study of Key Effective Practices in Ohio's Improved

School Districts. Bloomington, IN: Indiana Center for Evaluation and Education Policy.

https://web.archive.org/web/20111119041445/http://ceep.indiana.edu/projects/PDF/2002

02_Key_Effec_Prac_Final_Report.pdf Research Associates (2002).

Mayer, R. E. (2014) Introduction to Multimedia Learning. In R. E. Mayer (Ed.), The Cambridge

Handbook of Multimedia Learning. (pp. 1-882). New York: Cambridge.

Reeves, D. B. (2004). Accountability for learning: How teachers and school leaders can take

charge. Alexandria, VA: ASCD. ISBN: 0-87120-833-4.

Schraw, Gregory & Matthew McCrudden. Information Processing Theory. Jul 12, 2013.

www.Education.com

Silver, H., Strong, R., & Perini, M. (2007). The strategic teacher: Selecting the right research-

based strategy for every lesson. Alexandria, VA: ASCD. Retrieved from

http://www.ascd.org

Trotter, Andrew. Teachers Get Resourceful With 'Open Content.' Content-sharing across the

Web is becoming a valuable classroom tool for educators. Education Week Teacher PD

Sourcebook. March 16, 2009.

Weinstock, Jeff. T.H.E. Journal, Accountability, Yes. Teaching to the Test, No featured April

10, 2008, in T.H.E. Journal.