Grading a Confidence-based IRAT?
Larry Michelsen's confidence based testing method is an interesting approach to use on IRAT activities. But sometimes there can be a bit of confusion between grading points and confidence based points.
Below I'll try to quickly answer a relevant question from one professor which was originally the following:
" I was given the option of setting a point value for the questions on the iRAT, and I chose 5 points each (because that meant that the total was a nice round number). However, when students took the actual quiz and did point spreading it only gave them 4 points to use. I'm not really clear how grades are then calculated if, for example, a student put 2 points on the right answer. Do they get 2 points? Or do they get 50% of 5 (2.5 points)?"
In essence, the points to be allocated are not mutually tied to the points set as the grading criteria. The confidence based points are just an answer selection tool, and the points available are tied to the amount of answers available in that specific question.
So a question with 4 answers will give the students 4 points to allocate. Here 2 confidence points will equal 2.5 points in the grading scale, and the answer will reflect a 50% confidence level. So, 1 point will reflect a 1.25 or 25% confidence level, and so on.
If your question only has 2 answers, then the students will only have 2 points to allocate, and the process is replicated.