The sixth validation study: Assessing the ease of use in the environment and markers' acceptance of onscreen marking in Hong Kong in three subject areas: A Rasch measurement perspective

During the series of validation studies investigating the implementation of onscreen marking in Hong Kong's public examinations, an issue arose. The issue was that some markers were not as positive as might have been expected – given the English Language markers' reactions to the enhanced support from the system. Concern was expressed about the feedback and support provided to markers on the accuracy of their marking. It was considered that this was an area that should be investigated with a view to possibly enhancing the amount and type of feedback provided to markers. This chapter therefore extends the investigation into OSM (see accounts of previous studies in this volume) into two areas: ease of use in the environment; and markers' acceptance of OSM in the Hong Kong public examination context. In contrast to previous studies in this volume where there was a single subject area focus, this study took a heterogeneous approach. The sample forming the database for the investigation contained scripts from three subjects (English Language, Chinese Language, and Liberal Studies). Scripts comprised essays and short answer questions, as well as scripts written in either English or Chinese. Two scales assessing the ease of use and markers' acceptance of OSM were investigated from a Rasch measurement perspective (a more sophisticated mode of measurement compared with classical test theory as described in Chap. 3 and below); with both scales showing good psychometric properties. The findings revealed that markers generally had a high level of perceived ease of use in the environment and the overall acceptance of OSM was positive. Differences of person measures across language, question type, and subject were compared and implications of the two scales for future validation research studies are briefly discussed. Copyright © 2016 Springer Science+Business Media Singapore.