NEW DELHI, SEPTEMBER 2: The proposal to change the assessment system for the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Advanced has moved into the pilot stage, with adaptive testing being explored as a means of assessing students’ abilities more effectively and reducing dependence on coaching.
Under the proposed system, the difficulty level of questions would be adjusted based on a candidate’s performance. A pilot project involving about 4,000 first-year students from different Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) was recently conducted. The students’ responses and performance data have been collected and are being processed, said Manindra Agrawal, professor at IIT-Kanpur.
In the proposed adaptive model, candidates would initially be presented with questions of different types. As the examination progresses, their performance would be used to assess their competency levels, following which questions of appropriate difficulty could be selected automatically. IIT-Kanpur is also examining the possibility of developing a question bank from which fresh questions could be automatically generated or selected for candidates at different competency levels.
The proposed system is aimed at providing a more nuanced assessment of a candidate’s ability, while reducing the advantage gained through intensive coaching and repeated practice of similar questions. The authorities are considering 2030 as the target for introducing the new assessment system, subject to the outcome of the pilot and further evaluation.
