Decreasing Student Stress Through Multi-Attempt Digital Engineering Assessments with Rotating Questions.

This paper will discuss building multi-attempt quizzes and exams that use the Canvas Learning Management System (LMS) to deliver engineering assessments designed to lower overall student stress and anxiety. These assessments use practice-focused questions that force students to build programs (C++ and Matlab), draft engineering drawings (AutoCAD and Solidworks), and apply engineering design, ethics, and intellectual property concepts to solve open-response questions. Each time a student takes the assessment, the questions shift randomly within topical areas facilitated by question banks that rotate among questions of similar difficulty for each new attempt. Each assessment is composed of 1-5 question banks to ensure all topics were covered throughout the various assessments. In total, 17 assessments used this framework across two fall semesters and one spring semester in the 2020 and 2021 school years. Over the course of 10 unique assessments and 3 semesters, 54.7% of students used more than one attempt on each quiz or exam when averaged across all assessments in the study. Using LMS analytics and open-ended questions administered through an end-of-term student survey, 86.2% of students reported positive experiences regarding the assessment methods, 51.2% of students reported decreased anxiety, and 22.6% of students appreciated the greater flexibility provided by the assessments. From this data, multi-attempt assessments had a positive impact on students' wellbeing in three semesters that were particularly challenging due to the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]