Test/Examinations: The Eisen Effect

This post has gone to Beh. An., Beh2000, IB-L, and ALB.

(1)  Dave Feeney reports that Temple Univ has fired Marty Eisen, a tenured
prof of math, for "grading too hard."

(2)  A good friend and extremely able psychologist has not had the
promotion to the full Professorship he merits for the same reason.

(3)  After receiving the first of these T/E posts, a Venezuelan
psychologist asked for advice on a case with which she has become
concerned:  members of a class of her University's Medical Students have
trashed (arson) the Dept of Physiology whose members, over a series of
years, have "graded too hard."

All of which reminds me of that chemistry prof who boasted of the course he
gave which was so good that no student got better than a "D" on the final.

In any of these cases, had the instructors made very clear to their
students what they were _expected_ to learn and should/would learn?  No,
they made assignments, lectured, and so on and left it to the students to
figure out what was and was not 'important.'

The lack of this instruction at the beginning of the course, with planned
repetition of major concepts and skills, will make almost any test/exam
"too hard."

When we "explain" grading policies by appealing to Flexner, and to
"corporate greed," forget about it.

W.S.V.
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    William S. Verplanck          [email protected]
  An award-winning site: http://web.utk.edu/~wverplan/
    http://web.utk.edu/~wverplan/kantor/kantor.html
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