Distance learners are often anxious about how they are doing. They need frequent and thorough feedback on their progress to maintain their momentum and gauge their learning. Instructors should use formal and informal assessment methods throughout the course to help students monitor their progress.

Student assessment provides you with important feedback on your students' progress and can help keep them focused and on schedule. Assessments conducted before the beginning of the instruction help you determine what your students already know about a topic and discover what they need to learn. Those conducted during and at the end of the course add variety to course activities, provide transition between topics, measure progress, reinforce learning, and measure achievement of the learning objectives.

Prepare your students for their exams

Because distance learners cannot ask questions in class, you need to provide detailed information on how they will be assessed and how to prepare for the assessment. You should provide basic information such as the topics that the exam will cover, how long it will be, and what types of questions (multiple choice or essays, for example) will be included. You can also give your students sample questions and answers.

Administer exams

If you are required to administer exams in person, you may need to arrange for proctored examinations where you or the learner identifies an appropriate person and place to administer the test. The exam is administered locally and returned to you.

Decide when you want your students to take exams. If the exams are always available for students to take, distance learners will have more flexibility and you will be able to grade the exams as they are submitted. However, in doing so you might run the risk of having students jump ahead and take the exams before completing the related reading and activities. If your course format involves paced group learning, you may want to schedule the exams.

Consider giving your students regularly-scheduled quizzes to help them pace their work, provide feedback, and perhaps increase interactivity. You can opt for self-graded quizzes that will save you time.

Read design tips

Learners should not have to struggle with unclear instructions, questions that do not seem to relate to course material, or their own anxiety. Well-designed exams and exam-preparation lessons can reduce such obstacles. Consider the following exam-preparation tips:

• Frame exam questions within the context of the course and tell students the intent of each kind of question.
• Let students know what constitutes a satisfactory answer to a question in each exam section.
• Sequence the level of difficulty in the exam questions from easier to harder in order to reflect the learner's progress throughout the course.
• Use the assessment to provide students with an opportunity for additional learning experiences.