What should tests/exams test? (2)

Given the "now" methodologies of educationists and of 'test' producers,
their tests/exams evaluate the results of "teaching to the test."  This
enables others to evaluate the effectiveness of such teaching and of the
various special courses given (for a fee) which aim to teach fearful
students how to get higher grades on the ACT, GRE, SAT, or whatever.

Thus, you readers can _evaluate_ both the "technology" of the test methods,
the effectiveness of "teaching to the test," and of all those courses that
aim to increase test scores.

My own guess is that this outrageous educationalist game will be shown for
what it is most readily by the examination of the data provided by the
multiple-chose exam.  I've had two shots at this:

One was to have a student who scored high on m.c. tests take the final (a
multiple choice exam) of a course on a subject which he had never taken and
of whose subject matter he was ignorant except for what he'd picked up in
comic strips, the media, and bull-sessions.

He got over 30% of the questions correct--significantly higher than
chance.  He "passed the course" with a low grade.  He was A-1 at spotting
incorrect alternatives.

The second effort was an exam I gave to a group of very superior
students.  This was a multiple-choice exam, _really_ _multiple_:

It _looked_ like an m.c. exam, but the instructions read like this:  "In
each of the following questions, none, one, two, three, four or all five
alternatives may be correct."  Thus, each question was a five-pack of
true-false questions.

The students sweated.  After it, they complained:  it was the "hardest"
exam they had ever taken!  (M.C. guessing skill didn't help.)

So, go do some research on the present exam system.

And yes, there are indeed able teachers who are driven out of the
profession by the fashionable methods.

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