New technologies in psychological assessment: the example of computer-based collaborative problem solving assessment | International Journal of e-Assessment
New technologies in psychological assessment: the example of computer-based collaborative problem solving assessment
Computer-based assessment is a relatively new but exponentially growing field in psychological assessment. Its advantages are numerous – flexibility of application, the opportunity to use video and audio material, the construction of dynamic tasks, and the availability of log-file data that allow us to capture the entire process of solving one task. Since collaborative problem solving is a skill that is becoming increasingly important in the 21st century due to the shift in requirements on labour market and in education, constructing an appropriate assessment tool for it is a high priority in current research. The computer-based assessment of collaborative problem solving appears to be a logical solution for capturing the entire process of collaboration and problem solving. However, the construction of computer-based collaborative problem solving assessment comes with many questions that need to be discussed – How can we create the assessment environment for collaborative problem solving assessment? Can we use computer agents instead of real humans to simulate the collaboration and how does the perception of social presence of these agents influences test-takers’ behaviour? How can we structure and assess communication in collaborative problem solving? How can we properly use contextual data obtained from log-files? These and other questions are addressed in this paper.