# Impact of Computer-Based Assessments on the Science's Ranks of Secondary Students
## 2 Assessments and CBAs
### Testing Mode and Achievement  
The effect of the testing mode (\"mode effect\") in achievement has been broadly investigated with data from standardized LSA [41; 42]. In the absence of equivalent studies in school settings, the outcomes of LSA studies are the best reference in literature to examine whether the testing mode affected the measurement of achievement in school populations and in the specific field of science. LSA consists of a massive administration of tests under standardized conditions where large samples of test-akers sit a state, national or international exam the same day, covering identical or equivalent content but either in paper or on-screen. Then, researchers compare the outcomes to observe whether the scores earned under each mode are different. For these studies, the design and selection of items, the construction of tests and all the logistics and rules required to administer these tests are led by external assessments experts, while school teachers are simply observers without opinion or influence in these events. An important flaw found in LSA as PISA and TIMSS is that the lack of pupil's interest or motivation to perform well along with their \"academic endurance\" to sustain the level of effort until the end of the test can give unreliable results [43; 44]. It would be worth having references from similar analyses supported by data from equivalent deployments in school settings. Unfortunately, a search for related literature in the Education Resource Information Center (ERIC) database and Google Scholar using, among others, the terms \"CBA\" (or any of its other equivalent terms), \"implementation\" (or deployment) and \"secondary school\" (or secondary education) did not bring useful references to be cited here. The few references found are not useful for comparisons for distinct reasons: Most are pilot studies that lasted for a limited period of time instead of for at least the full duration of a course. In others, the focus of the assessments was not science, or the educational level where it was implemented was not secondary, or CBAs were used exclusively for formative instead of summative purposes. In sum, nothing was found in literature about long-term \"mode effect\" studies under non-standardized conditions, with school grades as the main outcome variable and implemented with the existing resources of average schools. Therefore, we will review the outcomes of eight LSA \"mode effect\" studies published since 2005 and selected because they were administered to populations of secondary students and concerned with the educational area of science, which is the scope of our study. Two of these studies are meta-analyses of prior works, and six correspond to research studies based on more recent data from LSA. In four of these selected studies, the authors reported that the CBA and PBA scores were either equivalent or one mode slightly easier than the other but without reach statistical significance [45; 46; 47; 48]. In three, the authors found that the scores in PBAs had been higher than in CBAs, but only in one case, the difference was reported as statistically significant [49]. In the other two studies that correspond to two well-known international LSAs: a field trial of PISA 2015 conducted in Germany, Sweden and Ireland [50] and a study to examine potential mode effects in TIMSS [51]; the authors reported similar findings. However, in a meta-analytic review of fourteen prior studies, it was found that in ten, both tests were comparable overall; in three, the science tests were harder in PBAs mode; in one, the CBAs version was more difficult. They concluded that, in general, science tests were comparable across the two modes [52]. Some of these studies also reported other interesting findings. For example, [PERSON] (2009), in a meta-analytic review of 81 studies between 1997 and 2007, concluded that, while the grade (or educational level) had no effect on comparability, disciplines, on the contrary,did have an effect.