Exploring Instructor and Student use of an American Sign Language E-Assessment System

In this paper, the authors examine how instructors used an online assessment environment designed to evaluate the performance of undergraduate students enrolled in American Sign Language (ASL) courses. 640 undergraduate ASL students at a large Midwestern university participated in this study. The findings suggest that instructors varied greatly in the manner in which they used the e-assessment system both in terms of the amount of time spent evaluating student assessments and in the proportion of total assessments scored. Furthermore, students’ responses to an open-ended survey on their experiences with the system generated useful insight to guide future design. Finally, implications for the design and integration of world language e-assessment environments are discussed.