What Is The Best Assessment For eLearners And Why?

I would have to say it depends on subject content and what performance objectives you are attempting to assess.  Since my area of teaching relates primarily to a K-12 eLearning curriculum, it's more likely that I will be concerned with finding out just how much each of my students have learned about a specific topic of study. Therefore a formative assessment that emphasizes criterion-referenced interpretations, that is, comparing an eLearner's performance to a well-defined domain can indicate an accurate assessment of what my eLearners can and cannot do; do know or does not know. It also means that no matter how an assessment is carried out it must ask questions specific to the content domain that you, as a teacher, want your  eLearners to be learning. It is essential to base formative assessments on lesson objectives and to use to monitor progress to validate  instruction as well as dictate whether or not instruction needs to be modified. Most often these type of assessments are performance or behavior driven not just paper and pencil multiple choice tests.

Specific questions asked within the framework of a formative assessment can be asked and answered by having eLearners participate in a game activity or in creating a game activity, project presentation, video screencast, short essay or even taking a short online T/F quiz. Utilizing audio and video technology is a great way to implement a formative assessment and for interpreting criterion-referenced questions/answers that establish what an eLearner can and cannot do.    

For example, if the topic being taught were knights in the Middle Ages, an eAssessment might be in the form of audio/visual project where an eLearner displays a picture of armor and labels it and describes it by creating a podcast to deliver that information. Or, an eLearner could be asked to write a blog from the point of view of a knight while in battle or perhaps role play an interview with a knight. These three examples demonstrate a performance driven formative assessment.

Another example may invlove having eLearners order a list of spelling words according to their difficulty or solve algebraic equations involving two unknowns. (Oosterhof, Conrad, Ely, 2008, pp. 74-75)  

References

Authorstream (2005). Assessing students online. Retrieved from
      http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/Berenger-33823-Assessing-Students-Online-Why-Assess-Uses-Assessment-Tools-Modes-Knowledge-Based-as-Entertainment-ppt-powerpoint/.
Classroom Assessments. (n.d.). Formative and summative assessments. Retrieved from
    http://fcit.usf.edu/assessment/basic/basica.html.