The Mathwise test engine was used successfully five years ago to assess mathematical skills in a traditional British first year engineering mathematics course. Mathwise is a comprehensive set of fifty modules covering topics from the school/university interface in the UK to subjects in the final year of an Honours Mathematics course. The use of Mathwise formal end-of-module assessment has grown over the last few years and this paper will describe some of the areas of growth.
Feedback from the educational experiment in 1994 suggested improvements which, in part, cater for partial credit in formal testing. Mathwise already has some of these features built into its test template giving the chance for the teacher to set intermediate steps in any problem. It also provides for linked answers. In addition, Mathwise has a range of devices to enable the question setter to give partial credit for student answers near but not quite in the correct form. Further improvements have followed in the form of answers in ordered or unordered lists. In packages like Interactive PastPapers it is possible to produce quite sophisticated mathematical tests with automatic marking in a number of feedback modes.
