At the current stage of educational reforms and large-scale transformation processes that our country is undergoing, applying modern pedagogical methods and technologies of education into practice is playing more and more significant role.
As a consequence of rapid development of information technologies in our republic, distance learning system as the modern form of education is being adopted and utilized effectively and successfully in different areas of education, which is considered as a prospective initiative that can contribute to the further globalization of education.
As the Distance Learning system involves the permanent availability of information and communication technologies, the teaching auditory or the classroom is converted into virtual teaching medium, and the university applicants can have the opportunity to obtain adequate level of knowledge independently, to increase their motivation for learning and to get use of self-evaluation processes.
It is known that, for many years, the entrance exams for the universities of our republic have been taking place based on the testing process involving multiple-choice questions, which is delivered by the State Testing Center of the republic.
In order to improve the quality of preparedness of applicants for the university, it is very useful to apply distance learning system and develop computer-aided testing systems and applications that creates opportunities for university applicants to get prepared for the university entrance exams from a distance, to evaluate their knowledge and preparedness, as well as to get recommendations on the suitable universities and majors according to his or her results and by comparing the score with the entry points of students observed in previous entrance exams of the universities. By creating such testing systems as one of the real alternatives, it is possible to ensure that all the applicants in the republic, regardless of where they live, will be able to get adequate level of knowledge and evaluate their knowledge on a regular basis.
This computer application utilizes different means of multimedia. And the applicants are capable of acquiring further knowledge, improving their exam skills, evaluating their own knowledge, and identifying as well as analyzing their mistakes on a regular basis.
This testing system comprises the following features.
‒ Selecting the university and the major
‒ Registering the applicant and getting started with the test
‒ Testing process and summarizing the results
‒ Giving recommendations for the suitable educational institutions
‒ Identifying and analyzing the wrong answers
As the computer application is started, the applicant goes through the following stages.
Selecting the university and the major
There is a list of all the educational institutions all over the Republic, and the applicant is to select the university that he or she intends to enter. Then, the applicant is provided with the list of majors available at the university that he or she has selected. After the applicant has chosen the major, the system he or she will get information on entrance exams for the previous year. The information includes entry scores for the admission of both scholarship and self-financed students as well as a set of 3 subjects that are required for the major, and therefore for testing the applicant. In case there is a foreign language included as a subject in the set, the system provides the applicant with a list of all the available foreign languages that are taught at schools of the republic. In this case, the applicant has to choose the appropriate foreign language that he or she has been learning.
‒ Registering the applicant and getting started with the test
In this stage, the applicant has to enter his or her first and last names. Then, he or she has to press the appropriate key for starting the test. As a result, the system generates, according to certain criteria, samples of questions for the set of 3 subjects each containing 36 questions based on the database of questions published by the State Testing Center. The first question of the first subject of the set appears on the computer screen. At the top of the screen, there will be 36 labels for indicating the selected answers by the applicant for each of the 36 questions.
‒ Testing process and summarizing the results
As the applicant reads the question and chooses his or her answer for that question, the answer of the question appears next to the question number at the top of the screen, and the applicant automatically moves on to the next question. The applicant has the opportunity to skip questions and go on with any question by just clicking on the question number from the top of the screen that he or she wishes to answer, and the question as well as the answers appears on the screen. Besides, there is the possibility to switch among the 3 subjects at any time during the test. The subjects are displayed at the bottom of the screen, and the applicant has to click on the one that he or she wishes to move on to. After the applicant has answered the questions of all the subjects, the results of the test are displayed on the screen. The allocated time for the test is 3 hours and the remaining time is always displayed on the screen during the test. In case the applicant can not finish answering all the questions for all the subjects within 3 hours, the testing process is automatically stopped and the results are announced. The results for each of the all 3 subjects and the overall score will be displayed on the screen.
‒ Giving recommendations for Universities
After the knowledge level of the applicant has been identified, his or her score will be compared with the minimum entry points of scholarship students for each of the universities of the republic for the previous year. Then, the applicant will be provided with a list of recommended universities together with appropriate majors that the applicant has scored enough points to pass their entrance exams.
‒ Identifying and viewing wrong answers
After the testing process, the list of question numbers at the top of the screen will be highlighted with appropriate colors depending on whether the applicant’s answers to those questions were correct or incorrect. This enables the applicant to identify the questions that he answered incorrectly, and to analyze those questions in order to learn the topic and the subject in deeper detail.
