Essay Marking on Screen Cognitive workload is greater on screen

Abstract

Electronic marking of digitally scanned images of exam scripts is now used by all major UK educational assessment agencies. Although it is not yet replacing traditional paper-based marking in all contexts, marking on screen represents a significant development. Measures of examiner cognitive workload in this project suggested that examiners with no prior experience of marking on screen had to work harder to achieve the same results when marking on screen as on paper. It was also found that marking on screen was more frustrating than traditional paper based marking, particularly in the earliest stages of marking for the examiners in this study.