A web-based e-testing system supporting test quality improvement

In e-testing it is important to administer tests composed of good quality question items. By the term "quality" we intend the potential of an item in effectively discriminating between strong and weak students and in obtaining tutor's desired difficulty level. Since preparing items is a difficult and time-consuming task, good items can be re-used for future tests. Among items with lower performances, instead, some should be discarded, while some can be modified and then re-used. This paper presents a Web-based e-testing system which detects defective question items and, when possible, provides the tutors with advice to improve their quality. The system detects defective items by firing rules. Rules are evaluated by a fuzzy logic inference engine. The proposed system has been used in a course at the University of Salerno.