All You Need to Know about Confidence-based Testing

Have you ever had students who may do well on a single test but have no improvement in their overall performance?  

One of the reasons this might happen is that tests sometimes reward students for guessing rather than their content knowledge. Students might have scored by clever guesses without knowing the correct answers. A way to combat this problem is by using confidence-based testing – and InteDashboard has that feature! 

Confidence-based testing or point spreading is a metacognitive exercise which assesses students on the correctness of their knowledge and how confident they feel about their answers. 

Learners have several points per question that they can allocate to different answers based on how confident they are about each. For example, if a student has 4 points, he/she can allocate 3 points to option A and 1 point to option D if he/she is sure that A is the correct answer but thinks that D might be as well. 

Correctly answering a test item relates to cognitive accuracy, while the perception of knowledge refers to confidence. Understanding the effect of confidence on test performance provides a more comprehensive approach to interpreting test scores. Some studies have demonstrated that confidence ratings increase with learning abilities. There is a clear connection between learner confidence and learner performance, as illustrated below: 

Here is a brief explanation about each quadrant: 

Uninformed: Learners in this category know that they do not have the knowledge, hence they lack confidence. 

Doubt: Learners in this category have the knowledge but are not confident enough about applying the knowledge. They are more likely to hesitate to perform tasks at the workplace. 

Misinformed: Learners in this category lack knowledge but have high levels of confidence. This could set them up for failure for tasks in the workplace. 

Mastery: Learners in this category have the knowledge as well as the confidence to apply that knowledge. This naturally makes them more productive in the workplace. 

On InteDashboard, confidence-based testing can be used in the Individual Readiness Assurance Test (IRAT). In this system, the student specifies his/her confidence level for each test item. Four confidence levels are suggested. The higher the confidence level, the higher the score students will get for a correct answer. 

Here is an example of the students’ view on InteDashboard when attempting IRAT with confidence-based testing: 

The student is confident that A is the correct answer, so he/she allocates all four points to A. 

 The student does not know the answer to this question at all, so he/she allocates one point to each option. 

Real-time reporting dashboard allows instructors to see the individual responses as students attempt the IRAT. Instructors can gauge which questions the students are struggling with and need to spend more time on. 

Here is an example of how the teacher dashboard looks like when students attempt IRAT with confidence-based testing: 

Most students were not confident of their answer choice in Q8. This is a problem spot; hence the instructor should zoom in on this question. 

 Confidence-based testing brings benefits to both students and instructors.  

Benefits for students: 

• Confidence-based testing encourages reflective learning. Students can get partial grade credits; hence they are more motivated to reflect deeply on the questions. 
• Confidence-based testing positively impacts how the students approach the Team Readiness Assurance Test (TRAT): During TRAT, instead of democratically voting on the answer choices, team members now reflect more deeply on their answer choices and get into a more nuanced discussion. 

Benefits for instructors: 

• Confidence-based testing allows the instructor to immediately notice students’ preparation level and understanding of key concepts. 
• Confidence-based testing data in real-time can assist instructors to optimize their teaching by allowing them to zoom in on students’ and teams’ trouble spots. 

If you would like to learn more about confidence-based testing on InteDashboard, book a demo with us today!