APPLICATION OF ACHIEVEMENT TESTING SOFTWARE OF CADETS IN HIGHER MILITARY EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

The article presents description, advantages, and use of the Achievement Testing Software (ATS) developed by the authors - the teaching staff of the Military Diplomatic Academy named after Yevheniy Bereznyak - for cadets' achievement testing in the educational process of higher military educational institutions. The authors prove the necessity of the ATS introduction into the educational process of such institutions due to the inability of existing computer testing software to fully satisfy their needs (high costs of technical maintenance, closed exit codes, and constant reliance on the Internet connection making it impossible to provide sensitive information security). Unlike other systems, the ATS is a reliable instrument of military educational control, capable of operating off-line. It was developed based on fundamental works in test theory, measurement and evaluation by Ukrainian and foreign scholars. It can be widely used for different types of achievement testing in higher military educational institutions: classroom; entrance or summative; and in any type of military course. The ATS rational use allows saving learning time and teachers' effort, simultaneous engagement of many cadets in the training process, as well as objective measurement and evaluation through its automation. The ATS also provides capabilities of control over the educational process which allow curricula correction due to the constant feedback from cadets. Basically, the ATS performs two interrelated functions: test development and editing (by teachers); and academic achievement measuring (by cadets through the developed test items). The system can be easily installed on personal computers with Windows XP Professional SP2 operational system. The article describes in greater detail the procedure of operating in two modules: the Teacher's Module and the Testing Module. Here, the ATS provides a user-friendly menu that can be easily navigated by pressing on buttons and selecting necessary options according to the instructions. The test entrance is password-protected, the test is encrypted, and the test score can be quickly viewed by cadets and teachers immediately after its completion. The ATS efficiency was proved through an experiment involving cadets of the Military Diplomatic Academy named after Yevheniy Bereznyak by demonstrating improvement in their performance.