Digital assessments are reigning supreme among education technology moneymaking tools according to Software and Information Industry Association estimates from the 2012-2013 school year.

“Software vendors and publishers raked in $2.5 billion on digital assessment products in the United States in the 2012-2013 school year, according to estimates released this week by the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA),” reports David Nagel of THE Journal. “The total market for software and content in U.S. preK-12 education was up by $480 million to $8.38 billion.”

These drastic figures were derived from 144 participants who reported a total of $3.3 in total revenue combining “software, digital content/resources and related services.” The $2.5 billion raised by testing and assessments was the largest single category of any market according to the survey results.

“Revenues from Online Courses grew 320 percent with several significant companies reporting revenues in this category for the first time,” according to John Richards, Ph.D, Founder and President of Consulting Services for Education, Inc. and Leslie Stebbins, M.Ed., Director for Research at Consulting Services for Education.

Testing and assessments is up a total 57 percent over two years nearly quadrupling from the increase over the first year, according to information provided by the SIIA survey.

While schools may have scaled back on standardized testing, self-assessment tools used at home paired with in-class assessments seem to be on the rise among educators.

Oddly enough the survey also revealed that, “Instructional Support was down 2.4 percent in spite of an almost 16 percent rise in Testing and Assessment.”

“States and districts are continuing to prepare for the Common Core State Standards and related digital assessments,” according to the survey. “There will be a need for aligned content and much more demand for formative data and data analytics.”

From the results revealed by the 144 participants, teachers are becoming less dependent on software to help them with their lessons but are using the tools in Testing and Assessment to see how effective their instruction is on students as they prepare them for a widespread Common Core Standard.

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Article by Navindra Persaud, Education World Contributor