Thursday, October 18, 2001

Testing strategies unacceptable
Commentary by Jonathan Sampson

Last night, someone you know probably didn’t sleep. Nope, nothing exciting or controversial, he was just cramming for the three exams he had today.

Without question, testing students using the traditional exam format has gotten out of hand. Students are forced to memorize isolated concepts and spit them back out anywhere from two to eight times a semester in the name of education, but this format doesn’t encourage real learning.

While studies show that students learn through application of concepts, many professors have chosen instead to rely on basic true/false, multiple choice and fill-in-the-blank exams to evaluate progress.

Because of this, a student’s focus changes from learning and applying skills that will be useful down the road to guessing what’s going to be on the next exam and investigating the professor’s testing style.

Students simply memorize, take the test and move on.

Ryan Eloe, a junior economics major, calls this process “test dumping.” It happens every time a student has an exam, memorizes all of the material, regurgitates it and can’t remember it a week later.

The bottom line is that traditional, objective-based tests aren’t necessary. Professors can determine learning through other means. Some classes on campus already do it.

In the journalism department, many grades are based on the work students produce, not Scantron-based tests of concepts.

The only problem is, projects and essay exams mean more work for the professors.

They take longer to grade. They require creativity, and frankly many teachers have gotten lazy.

It’s much easier to slap down 50 questions and run 30 scantrons through a machine than it is to sit down and grade 30 theoretical essays.

Many students want to truly learn, but with such a focus on exams, it’s not possible.

Professors must change their focus from memorization to long-term application of skills.

Some teachers test to enforce reading. While this is understandable, a stronger approach would be to assign projects that put the knowledge from the readings to use. This way, students actually apply the material instead of simply making up an acronym to remember six words that will mean nothing to them next month.

In future careers, students will be required to put skills to work. Tests show they have memorized concepts, but true learning comes when they are able to put those concepts into practice.

Now, some disciplines will always need to fall back on Scantron exams. You can’t really write an essay about math problems, and it would be a daunting task to grade 200 geology essays.

However, even in mathematics students can benefit from explaining the practical applications of the discipline, and large classes already utilize teacher’s assistants to help grade exams.

So how do we avoid “test dumping?” Get rid of the tests.

It’s time professors challenged students to go beyond memorization and actually apply the knowledge they gained from the course. True learning comes when students think on their own.

Jonathan Sampson is a junior news-editorial journalism major from Commerce. He can be contacted at (j.m.sampson@student.tcu.edu).