The Digital Testing of Undergraduate Students’ Awareness of Business English Vocabulary

Nowadays, digital educational platforms do not only provide a variety of online assignments to boost students’ productivity, but also test and analyze the results received after completing the assignments. The research aimed to test undergraduate students’ awareness of Business English vocabulary terms via the digital educational platform Online Test Pad. In the testing from September till December 2019, there were involved 47 first-year undergraduate students majoring in Economics, Management, and Business Informatics (Saint Petersburg, Russia). The digital testing was performed via Online Test Pad; its customizable electronic tools included testing learning outcomes (one entry vocabulary test and one exit vocabulary test) and making surveys (one questionnaire). The results of the digital testing demonstrated an increase in the students’ awareness of Business English vocabulary terms and progress in learning them, which explained understanding the content of the Business English topics to study. The digital testing was compared to the paper-based testing of learning outcomes; its tools (four progress vocabulary tests and one end-of-term vocabulary test, Microsoft Excel charts and tables) revealed a rise in the awareness of Business English vocabulary terms. The digital testing enabled test instructors to identify the easiest and most difficult questions in the entry and exit vocabulary tests, as well as visualize the students’ answers to the questions. As a result, the digital testing proved to be more effective than the paper-based testing due to capabilities of the customizable electronic tools to test learning outcomes and make surveys.