Elaborating test materials for digital assessment of BSc students’ learning outcomes in training area “Agroengineering”, profile "Electrical Equipment and Electrotechnology”

The paper considers modern specific features and requirements for engineering education. The authors show changes in the forms, methods and means of professional education. The main engineering activities are specified for training area "Agroengineering". The paper underlines the importance of the comprehensive development of future engineers’ thinking, in particular, theoretical thinking, and the ability of performing logical actions with scientific concepts, using mental operations of comparison, concretizing, generalizing and abstraction. To check the development level of theoretical and logical thinking, the authors developed an educational and diagnostic test on the "Electrical Materials" course to note the necessity and possibilities of using computer testing for the strategic, systematic and objective assessment of students’ knowledge, in terms of the development of their professional thinking and competencies. There is a description of the procedure of elaborating test materials, and the test results are presented. The authors analyze the digital test results at the stage of ongoing control and the number of mistakes that students made when performing tasks of different subtests and sections. Assumptions are made about the possible reasons for the poor outcomes; possible ways to improve the test procedure are offered.