Innovations in online assessments: Ketan Kapoor
Over the last decade, technology has transformed the way skills are measured, analysed in organizations for prospective and current employees
In the last few decades, lot has changed in the way we do things and interact, but the way we conduct assessments still hasn’t changed much. Estimates suggest that there are more than 50 billion assessment situations in the world today, less than 0.5% of which happen electronically (computer based) and less than 0.1% online (computer + web based).
While the education industry remains one of the biggest consumers of assessments, organizations generally use assessments for recruitment, training effectiveness, competency mapping / tracking and employee engagements which results in reducing hiring cost and time, benchmarking and standardization of workforce, convenience of test administration, and a higher RoI in training.
Over the last decade, technology has transformed the way skills are measured, analyzed or even improved in organizations for prospective and current employees. Some of the recent innovations in this area are:
Customizable assessment platform – Rather than offering “take it or leave it” assessments especially around technical, functional and cognitive skills, technology platforms today allow a HR/Business manager to build their own assessments in less than 5 minutes based on the skills, difficulty level, duration, types of questions, etc., while ensuring that the test remains valid and reliable. This is possible through the advent of cloud technology and SaaS (Software as a Service) based offerings.
Hands-on assessments/Newer question types – What this essentially means is that instead of multiple choice questions, one can use online simulators which reflect “real world situations” and measure skills accordingly. The assessment industry today offersalgorithmic question types not only for technical skills such as coding and database query writing, but also for business acumen, logical thinking, data interpretation, quantitative aptitude, sales aptitude, customer focus etc., in a much more practical way and can improve/replace a subjective interview easily.
Automatic invigilation/Proctoring – An effective assessment will not become all pervasive unless technology improves to the extent that it prevent cheating even if the test is taken remotely without any supervision. While technology is still not fool proof, there are a lot of investments being made in this area globally and days are not far when we might not need any physical centers.
Actionable analytics – What differentiates an online assessment is its ability not only to generate data and results but also assist in having a look at the candidate’s approach to solving the problem.
Other innovations:
Concurrency
Adaptive testing
Innovations in psychometric assessments
Based on its current maturity, the assessment industry is more like what the telecom industry was in the 90s; however owing to innovations it is poised to see massive adoption and growth in the near future.
