COMPUTERIZED ADAPTIVE TESTING (CAT) AS THE SOLUTION TO INCREASE THE LEVEL OF INTEGRITY DURING THE NATIONAL EXAMINATION IMPLEMENTATION IN INDONESIA

Abstract

The national examination is a high stake testing held annually around Indonesia. It covers the testing at three levels of education, namely the elementary school, junior high school, and senior high school. Unfortunately, for years, the implementation of the national examinations has been full of unfair practices. It has been very common to find practices like cheating, getting the test answers from teachers or other students, or stealing the test items before they are administered on the days of testing. Sadly, these practices are not only done by students but also by teachers as well as by schools institutionally.  In 2015, the government set up a new regulation that the national examination results will not anymore determine the success of students to pass a certain level of education. Yet, the practices still happened as they were observed and been reported to the educational ministry. In order to cope with these problems, the computerized adaptive testing has been being developed by the educational ministry and been predicted to be able to improve the weaknesses of the paper- based testing. Besides, it is expected to decrease the number of unfair practices that may happen due to the use of the paper-based testing.