Automation of an educational measurement process using AI and knowledge-based expert systems

This article deals with the four steps of computerised educational measurements and suggests several emerging applications of Artificial Intelligence and expert systems to such measurements. These four steps are: Computerised Testing; Computerised Adapting Testing; Intelligent Measurements; and Continuous Measurements. The definitions of the terms used are as follows: Artificial Intelligence is a field of study that seeks to explain and emulate intelligent behaviour in terms of computer processes. AI exhibits the characteristics we associate with intelligent human behaviour: understanding, language, learning, reasoning and problem-solving through computation. Experts systems are software programs, usually confined to a specific field, that attempt to emulate the behaviour of human experts. Educational measurement is the process of specifying the position or positions for an educational purpose, of persons, situations or events on educationally relevant scales under stipulated conditions. Each of the fields is concerned with the constructs of human understanding, comprehension, learning, knowledge structures, problem-solving and human performance monitoring.