Automated Partial Credit for STEM classes

This paper introduces a system that allows the award of partial credit for exams and tests consisting of multiple choice and true/false problems. Traditional multiple-choice exams have a number of issues. For one, they result in overall lower grades than exams using the same problems in an open-ended format. It is well known, that students see multiple-choice and true/false problems as not completely fair because they do not take into account partially correct answers. Non-major courses such that Math and Statistics for Engineering and Computer Science majors create additional challenges because they require simultaneous content knowledge in more than one subject. A reliable automated method to assign partial credit for multiple-choice and true/false problems can greatly improve both quality and perception of fairness of the assessment. There are two major approaches to address the issue with multiple-choice problems, see e.g. [1], [2]. In this work we suggest a combined and generalized approach for assigning partial credit for non-open-ended problems by using Concept Inventory among other testing approaches. One of the main benefits of our suggested approach is content independence and applicability to both major and non major STEM subjects.