Information System of Assessment Rating Tool of Student´s Knowledge when Learning a Foreign Language

Abstract

One of the important tasks in professional education is to optimize the educational process. It concerns the use of methods of controlling the assimilation of educational materials. The purpose of using a rating system for student's knowledge evaluation is to create conditions to motivate the autonomy of students through appropriate means of assessing the results of their work. Rating system allows more objective assessment of student's knowledge, stimulates them in carrying out independent search of materials, the beginning of independent scientific research that leads to the development of the interest to the subject and, in psychological way, students move from passive spectators to active participants of the educational process. There are some special features in teaching foreign languages for technical universities, which consists in different levels of student's knowledge of foreign languages. The difference in language training significantly impedes the process of learning, because when students perform a very easy or a very difficult tasks, there is a decrease in motivation. The rating system is a universal tool for determining the quality of student learning, that is, a monitoring tool. We consider the problem of testing the knowledge of students, when given a certain number of questions. Firstly, knowledge is measured by means of traditional rating scale, and then goes to rating scale assessments. The relationship between the traditional and the rating scale is based on the interpolation approach. The rating scale has a certain flexibility, as in the course of evaluation we can take its lower, upper or secondary value. The article also gives the description of a software product, which is an information system of a rating estimation of student's knowledge.