Comparing Large-Scale Assessments in Two Proctoring Modalities with Interactive Log Data Analysis

Abstract

With the increased restrictions on physical distancing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, remote proctoring has emerged as an alternative to traditional onsite proctoring to ensure the continuity of essential assessments, such as computer-based medical licensing exams. Recent literature has highlighted the significant impact of different proctoring modalities on examinees’ test experience, including factors like response-time data. However, the potential influence of these differences on test performance has remained unclear. One limitation in the current literature is the lack of a rigorous learning analytics framework to evaluate the comparability of computer-based exams delivered using various proctoring settings. To address this gap, the current study aims to introduce a machine-learning-based framework that analyzes computer-generated response-time data to investigate the association between proctoring modalities in high-stakes assessments. We demonstrated the effectiveness of this framework using empirical data collected from a large-scale high-stakes medical licensing exam conducted in Canada. By applying the machine-learning-based framework, we were able to extract examinee-specific response-time data for each proctoring modality and identify distinct time-use patterns among examinees based on their proctoring modality.