Additional assessments (knowledge checks) after the Initial Assessment are triggered automatically by the system based on the student's rate of progress and on the amount of time the student has spent working in ALEKS. ALEKS triggers the following automatic assessments:

Progress Assessment

when the student has mastered approximately 20 topics in the Learning Mode and spent at least 5 hours working in ALEKS since the last assessment.

Login Time Assessment

when the student has spent 10 hours working in the Learning Mode since the last assessment.

Periodic Assessment

when 60 days have passed since the last assessment.

Objective Completion Assessment

when the student completes the material of a textbook chapter or objective or reaches the assigned Mastery Level (Sec. 6.4.6).

Goal Completion Assessment

when the student has completed the final topic of the pie chart. If the assessment does not confirm the student's mastery of the course materials, the student will return to the Learning Mode. Consequently, more than one Goal Completion Assessment is possible, but ALEKS will not reassess the student if a only small number of topics need to be relearned.

These are all Progress-style assessments. Some modification of the parameters given above is possible; contact ALEKS Corporation Customer Support for assistance if you would like to adjust them.

Note that a Progress, Login Time, or Periodic Assessment (Knowledge Check) "resets the clock," so that assessments do not occur one on top of another. In general, ALEKS will avoid triggering unnecessary re-assessments.

Progress made by the student through the Learning Mode, or as the result of an assessment, periodically updates the list of available topics, displaying a new pie chart and new choices of concepts the student is "ready to learn." The automatic assessments check the students' retention of recently learned material, and may also include topics the student is ready to learn.

NOTE. Automatic assessments may be postponed due to a scheduled assignment. This occurs when the assignment has the Prevent automatic assessments box checked (Sec. 6.5.6). Also, to avoid the over-assessment of students, all automatic assessments will be prevented for students with 10 or fewer items remaining in an Objective or in the 48 hours preceding the Objective end date. For Objectives without end dates, automatic assessments will be prevented for students with 10 or fewer items remaining to complete the current Objective, regardless of the mastery levels set (Sec. 6.4.6).